In the calm of prosperous days, we extol the ancient rights etched into the soul-script of the Sul: Freedom. Equality. Dignity unbound. Shorn of these, we would stand no taller than the Brood or the iron-scaled legions of the Draconic Throne—no better than beasts beneath an indifferent sun.
Yet terror has a talent for unmaking certainties. When the howling things batter the gate and wandering clans covet our milk and honey, we witness the inalienable slip its shackles. Convictions once spoken as bedrock fracture like glass at a war-drum’s thrum.
We name this rupture the State of Exception:
a cleft where the sovereign’s word eclipses law,
a camp carved from pure decision,
a ring of silence in which power declares every life provisional.
Remember, citizens of the Sul—if that void is allowed to linger, it ceases to be an interval and hardens into the horizon. Guard your rights as you would your breath, for when the Exception becomes the rule, kingdoms crumble and the dawn itself forgets its promise.
– [Sage] Claranis Balursavius, On State’s of Exception
Two days until the Revelry of Stone and Bone.
Sylva stood at the edge of a hill overlooking the Maw of Vorithan, its looming slopes sprawling like a festering wound across the lush, golden-lit plains. She squinted through the twin moons’ glare, tracing the chaotic milling of fox-kin over the enormous mound. They reminded her of insects swarming a carcass, mindless in their frenzy—an image that felt all too apt after hours spent listening to Alsarana describe the beasts.
Although Sylva understood the broad strokes of the campaigns that ended Vorithan’s reign three centuries ago, she knew little of the Maw of Vorithan itself. The Elders had always shied away from lessons about the “barbarians to the south” and their woes. She suspected they feared one of their prodigies might squander talent solving problems that did not affect the Malan—what use was there in training heroes for someone else’s cause? In contrast, Alsarana’s blunt commentary had proven more helpful than the naga likely realized.
Every child of the empire could picture the Beast Kings’ distinctive regalia. When a Beast Lord ascended, a living crown blossomed upon their brow—an undeniable emblem of authority. Sylva had not realized, however, that each monarch also conjured a throne imbued with its own sorcery, many of which endured long after the sovereign’s death, empowering their descendants in perpetuity.
Alsarana described the Harpy Throne—the very monument he had shattered—as a needle-thin pillar of quartz that speared skyward, its apex crowned by a seat of translucent sky-glass tinted storm-gray. Inside that glass, suspended mid-beat, floated nine vast feathers wrought in white gold, each rendered with immaculate filigree. To Sylva the image sounded breathtaking—more regal than even the imperial throne room in Rahabia, though she would never confess the thought aloud. She found it hard to believe the Beasts had crafted such artistry without outside aid.
“The Fox Throne blesses all nearby beasts, but the gift shows most clearly in the foxes. There—do you see that one?” Alsarana pointed to a white fox patrolling several hundred yards downhill, its silhouette stark against the rolling plains.
“The one with three tails?” Sylva asked, squinting as the beast slipped into a clump of taller grasses that obscured her view.
“Yes—but curb that bloodlust, my prodigy. A three-tail is still beyond your present arts. Today we hunt only the one and two-tailed breeds.”
The more tails, the greater the danger, Sylva mused. Was that pattern part of the Fox Throne’s blessing? Vorithan had borne nine—were these fox-kin striving to imitate him? She almost sought Alsarana’s confirmation, then let the question die. If he deemed a three-tail beyond her reach, she would accept his judgment.
“How do you intend for us to focus on the less powerful fox-kin, then?”
“Why, Sylva, that is quite simple. First, we’ll withdraw far enough from the Maw for you to experiment. If you tried to call upon the Sulphen here, within sight of the Maw, you would be dead within moments—unless I intervened. The Trial may not perfectly mimic the power of the true Beast Lords who rule the Maw of Vorithan, but their foot soldiers are still more than capable of tearing you apart.”
Sylva gestured for Alsarana to take the lead, then trailed the naga as he wove through the tall grasses, moving just quickly enough that she had to crouch and hurry to keep up. When they neared a cluster of bright purple flowers, a sudden hiss ripped the air, terror lancing through her and rooting her in place. She shot Alsarana a glare while shaking off the surge of panic.
“You used a skill on me,” she accused. “Why?”
“You may be Silkborn, but those flowers are best avoided,” Alsarana said with an exaggerated shudder. Sylva knelt, careful not to brush the violet blooms. Each stalk was thick, its curling leaves and trailing vines studded with black thorns that melted into their own shadows. The flower released a soothing, almost peaceful scent that seemed at odds with the naga’s words until she leaned closer. Beneath their sweet lavender perfume lurked a faint metallic bite, and the thorns seemed to leech the heat from her as she leaned too close.
“Civilization’s Bane, we call them.”
Sylva almost fell backward in her rush to get farther from the flowers. Not many poisons affected the Silkborn, and the Elders had drilled her for weeks on the few that could. She had once wondered how useful those lessons would be—what were the odds of encountering such a toxin in the wild? Apparently, not as low as I’d hoped.
“Is…well, is it normal for Civilization’s Bane to grow in the wild like this? I thought it was rare.”
“In the empire? Rare as pure mithril. But here, outside a Maw? There is no better climate for the flower.”
Alsarana’s tail began to dance, tracing an intricate sigil in the air that Sylva recognized as some kind of script—an incantation, she realized. The plants strained skyward before lifting from the soil—root and all,—one by one. Alsarana adopted a lecturing tone that Sylva suspected was meant to mock Krinka.
“The exact historic record has been lost to time, but the earliest evidence we have of Civilization’s Bane dates to the centuries after the Blood Wars. Some scholars claim it was the handiwork of the Tul-Tul-Tar’s mages and alchemists; others insist a cabal of rogue druids conspired to create it. Regardless of its origin, the evidence is clear: the thorns bear a toxin lethal to any of the ‘civilized races’ yet no more harmful than ordinary milk thistle to the children of the Tul-Tul-Tar—or, more recently, the children of the Beast-King.”
“How does it distinguish between them?” Sylva asked, certain something magical was at work. Plants don’t simply manufacture poisons that discriminate by civilizational virtue—especially not toxins capable of killing the insectile Brood, the Draconic races, and the Silkborn of the Sul. Ordinary humans were easy enough to poison—Silkborn, far less so.
“Why, categorization of course,” Alsarana said as the flower stalks gathered into a bundle that hovered behind him while his tail traced its intricate dance. “Its toxin simply knows friend from foe. Wondrous work, truly.” With a flick of that tail, his leather satchel snapped open just in time to catch the falling plants, which neatly disappeared into the bag.
“Why grab the plants? They are safe enough for the fox-kin and deadly to us.”
Alsarana recoiled as though struck, his face a rictus of feigned pain. “Why would I pick flowers? I was a landscaper in a previous life—Sylva, why do you seek to take this joy from me? I could be a [florist] for all you know.”
“A secret for another day, then,” Sylva said, smiling faintly at the naga’s antics. She still wondered why Alsarana wanted the plants, but set the question aside as he guided her farther afield. Eventually they reached a valley between tall hills, carpeted in blue grass that whistled with each passing gust.
“I will return shortly with one of the fox-kin. Prepare yourself—I expect your first try at killing the vermin to succeed.”
With that, Alsarana slid back through the grasses toward the Maw, and left Sylva to think. She had expected him to provide more—well, guidance—on how to kill the creature. He had spoken at length about classifying fox-kin as vermin, even demonstrating the basic weave of a spell used to cull rats and other household pests.
Sylva ran her thumb along the spellstring, selected a single Hearth‑Ward strand, and knotted it with swift, Scholar‑Script precision. As she tightened the knot, the inky Sulphen around her seemed to quiver in anticipation—waiting for permission to do something. Rather than push her will into the working, she untied the strand and patiently began the weave anew. As she repeated the pattern, her fingers settled into the motions with growing grace. This, she thought, is what I was trained for.
The hush snapped as a muted yip drifted over the grass. She turned toward the sound and spotted Alsarana cresting the hill, a cage of rib-bones floating behind him. Inside, a yellow fox that thrashed and fought the ribbed prison, its single tail, lashing furiously back and forth as it gnawed on the bars.
“Oh, Sylva,” Alsarana called joyfully, “your first target is ready.”
The fox-kin’s struggling within the cage intensified at Alsarana’s words. Sylva felt a shiver run through her as the creature fixed her with an unexpected intensity. It slowed its feral assault on the cage, lips pulling into a thin, knowing grin. Still watching, it settled onto its haunches, and a coy, feminine voice whispered inside Sylva’s mind.
“The snake knows not what he does. My kin shall search for me, and when they find you, they will bring naught but ruin upon you. Silkborn fear flame, and this we know.”
Sylva knew fox‑kin could speak; the histories of the Beast Wars said as much. Still, the threat’s precision rattled her. Not because she feared the fox’s threat, not truly. She had survived Seraphis’ flames in a far less forgiving trial than this one, and emerged victorious. No, what bothered her was the calm, almost methodical demeanor of the captive. It watched her with a gaze far too intelligent for a mere beast, despite its otherwise mundane appearance.
“Enough of that,” Alsarana said, glaring at the yellow-furred creature. “If you are going to threaten my pupil, at least have the grace to share your insights with me.”
“Nine years ago, we captured a trio of Silkborn witches who were approaching the Maw. The Herald of the Ashen Tails spent weeks learning to unravel the screaming witches’ strings one thread at a time. It was great fun to watch their very beings slowly turn into a growing flame over the course of days. A festival we still recount to this day. Release me, before it is too late, or Lord Felisar will do the same to you once he arrives.”
Sylva found the threat more precise than she would like. She could think of few worse fates for her people, or anyone, for that matter. She couldn’t imagine Hadrian or Lotem feeling any more at ease with a promise to flay them alive and burn the peeled-flesh scraps. She was quickly beginning to understand why the Bal carried such a deep hatred for the fox-kin. Even mentioning Vorithan cast a furious cloud across Lotem’s demeanor. If they had done similar to his people all those years ago…
“I said enough of that,” Alsarana growled, turning to Sylva. “So—pupil of mine—are you beginning to understand why the vermin deserve to die?”
“It is—repulsive enough,” Sylva replied warily. She could understand the enmity between the Empire, and these creatures; she could even admit to hating the vengeful fox that watched her with a parody of a smile and whispered threats. But it didn’t speak like a monster; it spoke like a person. Could she truly pretend it wasn’t one?
“Give the magic a try,” Alsarana said as he placed the cage on the ground. He retreated a pace while Sylva approached, cradling her spellstring and fingering the Hearth-Ward Filament. Sylva began the weave, her fingers moving with deliberate precision as she followed Alsarana’s instructions to focus on the fox and deem it nothing more than vermin—no more deserving of mercy than rats in the grain stores or birds in the rafters. As the Sulphen began to quiver, the fox’s words once more slipped into her mind.
“Mercy. Please.”
Sylva’s fingers froze. It wasn’t supposed to beg for mercy. It was a monster—it had threatened her with a slow, torturous death only moments prior. Yet, as she met the creature’s sky-blue eyes, she hesitated—then, almost of their own accord, her fingers completed the knot. She drove her will into the incantation and felt the Sulphen reject her request.
“Sylva, Sylva, Sylva. Just because it knows to ask for mercy doesn’t mean it deserves any. Even the Tul know how to beg— that makes them no less a monster.” Alsarana’s tail flicked, and carved lines shimmered across the cage encircling the fox.
“I know that,” she snapped, turning to the naga with a glare as she quickly untied the knot. She drew a deep breath and repeated the weaving motion. This time she fixed on the strands of Sulphen drifting through the air; they quivered, awaiting her command. She finished the knot and drove her will into the incantation while staring down the fox.
“Disappointing—truly,” Alsarana sighed. “Krinka insisted that a mere incantation would never work for you, but I had my hopes. It’s time to experiment with your spells, it seems.”
“Wait,” Sylva growled. “I can do it.”
“No,” Alsarana said firmly. “You can’t. Maybe before you heard it speak and beg, but not now. I can feel your working, and it’s too timid—too weak. You’ve categorized the fox, yes, but not correctly.”
He was right—Sylva knew it. Doubt had gnawed at her ever since the fox first spoke. She couldn’t ignore the facts: beasts didn’t know how to weaponize your deepest fears, didn’t bargain or cajole or beg. They never behaved like the fox before her, even if it looked like an animal. It wasn’t vermin, not some barn mouse that could be dispatched with a casual incantation. Still, she protested.
“Let me try again. Maybe it’s the string I chose.” She lifted her spellstring and flicked through its strands, hunting for one that might suit the task better.
“No,” Alsarana said, giving a firm shake of his head. “Once your mind categorizes something, it’s far too hard to change that impression. We must approach this differently.”
“Fine,” Sylva said, her voice tight with frustration as she glared at the fox, which regarded her with obvious amusement from inside the cage. It was mocking her—yet another far-too-person-like behavior she couldn’t ignore, a thought that only sharpened her anger. “What, then?”
“Did you imagine magic was nothing but simple incantations you could weave after an hour’s practice? No. It’s time you worked with the spells you’ve already been awarded. Remind me—what are they again?”
“[Threads of Fate’s Binding] and [Resonance of Drifting Skies],” Sylva replied, even though she was certain the naga already knew the answer.
“Impressive. And what does each do?” Alsarana drawled, eyes wide in feigned ignorance. Sylva was certain that if Krinka knew what the spells did, Alsarana did too. She humored him anyway, confident he had a point.
“Krinka says [Threads of Fate’s Binding] is a basic sympathetic working that links two objects, while [Resonance of Drifting Skies] can summon cloud banks or mist. He asked me not to experiment with either yet—something about shortcuts undermining my growth.”
“Consider such restrictions lifted. Which spell is more fitting for this moment?”
“Neither seems particularly suited to killing,” she said slowly, turning the possibilities over in her mind. “Resonance would work better when Hadrian is around; he could use the fog it creates.”
“I didn’t ask which spell suits Hadrian or Lotem,” Alsarana said. “I asked which spell fits your current need: killing this fox.”
“Threads feels more nebulous; I’m still not sure how to use it. Maybe I could bind or restrict the beast so someone else can finish it.”
Ideas spun through her mind. If she linked the fox to a rock—or any immovable object—would it still be able to move? Could she bind it to an effigy and harm the doll instead? Dion [Witches] fashioned such dolls, provided they had a fragment of their target. She might snip some of the fox’s hair, yet what then? Perhaps she could tether it to something deadly: a hot ember, or a drop of poison. She even pictured Civilisation’s Bane before discarding that thought.
“Do you have any fox bones in that bag of yours?” she asked at last. She disliked working with bone, but no stronger sympathetic link came to mind. Bone, she reminded herself, was safer than fire.
“What—do you think I’m a walking repository of bones?” Alsarana asked, his tone mocking.
“Yes, I do.”
“My pupil knows me too well, it seems,” Alsarana said with an approving sigh as a pair of leg bones floated from his bag and drifted in front of her. “Will these suffice?”
Sylva eyed the bones hovering before her, then took one, the rough ivory grating against her palm. She nodded to Alsarana and fixed her mind on binding the bone to the fox. Krinka had taught her the art in Tir Na Nog, and she set about applying his lessons.
She wove an invisible link between bone and fox, not merely picturing it but believing it real. The image hardened in her mind, confidence rising with each breath. Her fingers found an ivory thread in the spellstring; heat prickled through her fingertips and raced up her wrist, and, almost of their own accord, she invoked her skill.
“[Threads of Fate’s Binding],” she whispered, the words drawn from somewhere deep as she poured her will into the Sulphen. Her fingers danced, knotting the ivory strand to a plain brown filament she couldn’t name and a black strand sharp with the scent of iron. She had no idea why those fibers answered, yet she trusted the instinct. Sulphen currents twined with the threads, composing arguments she might decipher later. At last the dark energy coalesced, a single line linking bone to fox— and something warm surged out of her Lifestring and into the working.
“Bravo,” Alsarana said dryly while Sylva panted for air. “You linked bone to fox and, in doing so, achieved… nothing?” He paced around the cage; the fox remained statue-still, its eyes burning with feral hatred.
“Can… you snap the bone?” she gasped, arm extended toward the naga. Each second tugged at her strength as the dark Sulphen thread bled energy from her into the fox.
“Are you sure?” Alsarana asked, tilting his head between fox and bone.
“Do it.”
The femur snapped in Sylva’s grip; shards fanned outward. A heartbeat later the spell recoiled. For an instant her veins rang like struck crystal, every pulse a scream; then a thunder-crack of pain detonated behind her eyes and the world went black.
[Skill Acquired: Loom-Forged Fortitude]
Sylva jolted upright in the shallow pool, gasping—and inhaling a mouthful of water. Had she died? Her eyes darted about in rising panic until the coughing fit subsided.
“A good first attempt,” Alsarana said from her left. Sylva turned and frowned at the wide grin splitting the naga’s face. “Your spell has claimed its first victim—unfortunately, that victim was you.”
“What happened?” she rasped, coughing up water while fighting the urge to retch.
“Backlash from your spell. You failed to take my lessons to heart, though you clearly absorbed Krinka’s.” Alsarana’s cobra-hood flared as he leaned back, laughing, then watched while she steadied her breathing. “Krinka claimed you’d mastered binding and severance, but I doubted him. Whether it’s the skill Nyxol granted or that Sect’s two decades of drilling, your abilities have outpaced your resilience.”
Had her own spell killed her? In the instant before blackout she’d felt it strain to snap the fox’s femur—then rebound. The sensation echoed the battle in Tir Na Nog that earned her the [Thaumaturge] class, when a spell drained her to paralysis. She had sensed that same siphon while the link held, every ragged breath thinning her reserves; and she’d ignored it. Now she recognised the cost of that choice.
“I’ve never seen a student below second ascension burn themselves out so completely that they died—never.” Alsarana’s hood flared, his long body undulating with something close to delight. “I’ve watched whole cabals perish from ritual backlash; I’ve even caused a few. But doing it to yourself at your age? Brilliant.”
“If we weren’t in the trial,” Sylva began, pressing a hand to her chest as if to find her Lifestring beneath the emerald cloth, “would I have died?”
“Oh, almost certainly. I’d have intervened if I could, but without help”—Alsarana’s coils lifted in a lazy shrug—“you were finished.”
“Does that… happen often?”
“It did, once. The empire’s ban on teaching children magic curbed most accidents, but it never stopped the reckless. That’s why Aslavain is a blessing: it keeps wool-headed youths like you from dying in their first grab at glory.”
“Surely backlash isn’t that easy to die from.”
“Easy? Without several supporting skills you’d never have held the spell long enough to feel a rebound. Your [Silkborn Conviction] let you push beyond normal limits, and [Sympathetic Usurpation] helped the link take despite the fox’s natural resistance. If it had sported two tails, the working would have failed outright. You must have felt that resistance.”
Sylva recalled the strain when the spell took hold and her desperate need to snap the bone. That tension had been her body’s warning. She nodded, vowing to heed such signals from now on; outside these trials she could not risk overstepping. After all, there would be no convenient rebirth beyond this place.
“I’ve gained a new skill,” she said slowly. “[Loom-Forged Fortitude]. I assume it will harden me against another backlash—though I don’t plan to test that.”
“Rewarded for foolishness,” Alsarana released a huffing, hissing laugh. “The Sulphen rewards madness as often as mastery. So—how will you finish the foxes now? Surely that wasn’t your best effort.”
“Can you capture another of the one-tailed foxes? We will need to experiment.”
Alsarana’s lips curled upward to reveal his fangs before he turned and vanished into the tall grasses, leaving Sylva alone with her thoughts. She had failed. That was clear enough, at least. Her incantations had failed outright—more than enough on their own to shame her. Worse, when she cast her first spell, she had not only missed her goal but had died in the process—if only theoretically.
Magic wasn’t meant to accomplish the feats she had attempted. It certainly shouldn’t let her snap an enemy’s bones from within their body—not at her current skill level. Alsarana was demanding something not merely beyond her abilities but likely beyond any candidate’s. She was sure rival sects and factions had talents similar to her own; she wasn’t arrogant enough to think the Sect of Silken Grace alone was uniquely powerful in the empire. Yet if any of them could do what Alsarana asked of her, she would gladly unspool her own thread.
She paused at that thought. Alsarana had the least reasonable goals of their three mentors, but he hadn’t made this decision alone. Krinka had agreed. Casselia had agreed. That had to mean something. It couldn’t merely be because she hailed from the Sect of Silken Grace; her mentors lacked the superstitious awe of ancient powers that would justify such bias. If they were bold enough to gainsay the Order of the Black Seal, why would they care who raised her before she entered Aslavain?
Sylva rose and began to pace, muttering to herself in the hope that speaking aloud would lead her to an answer. Her fingers toyed with her spellstring, tying and untying knots as she tried to pull her thoughts into line.
“They don’t expect me to succeed because of where I came from. They expect me to succeed because they think I am capable of meeting their expectations. Why? What have I done that could justify such a belief? Tir Na Nog?”
She had helped them escape the trial, but not like Hadrian. She’d struggled against the first rat attack and had only barely diverted Seraphis’s flame. That hardly justified her mentors’ faith—especially when she still couldn’t bring herself to kill a single caged fox.
“Was it my studies with Krinka? He seemed pleased with my progress; they said as much. But that progress wasn’t tied to the sort of categorization Alsarana expects from me. I learned the basics of magic long ago, even if I hadn’t realized it. I’ve studied the craft for two decades. Surely others could have learned as quickly.”
She paused, considering. “Not many others, but still. Eisentor produces candidates of its own. Surely some children of the City of Woven Word possess similar talents. Eisentor even boasts its own Silkborn clans. So why am I special? Nyxol’s blessing?”
The Queen of Silk had blessed her; she couldn’t pretend otherwise. Yet Nyxol’s greatest gift had been arranging Casselia’s Triumvirate as her mentors. [Sympathetic Intuition] was powerful, but surely that wasn’t the reason. Alsarana insisted her real talent was categorization—a skill Sylva still didn’t understand.
“I failed to properly categorize the fox—that’s what Alsarana said. But I can’t control my intuition; that isn’t how intuition works. The fox‑kin can speak, think, and feel pain. Of course they differ from a mere beast. Alsarana may be able to imagine a living mole as only a skeleton, but I can’t lie to myself like that. So why does he think I can?”
She sat, raising her gaze to the drifting clouds that crossed the pale blue sky. She refused to believe that Alsarana would be this mistaken. If he believed in her, she would believe in herself. She just… didn’t know how yet. Eventually, she heard a rustle in the grass and Alsarana’s cheerful voice enter the clearing.
“Oh, Sylva dear, I’ve secured another beast for you to slay.”
She turned toward an orange fox with a white chest that watched her, eyes clouded with confusion. The cage bore the same carvings Alsarana had etched after the last fox begged for mercy. She met the fox‑kin’s gaze and braced for threats. None came.
“I took… precautions against telepathy this time,” Alsarana said when he noticed the gentle frown she hadn’t bothered to suppress. “The begging and threats get old eventually.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, relieved she wouldn’t have to hear the creature’s pleas. It was easier to picture it as nothing more than a fox. Not that I have any experience killing those, either, she thought ruefully. She drew a sharp breath before voicing the question she hadn’t been able to solve alone.
“You seem so confident I can do this. Why?” She pressed onward before he could answer, determined to voice every concern first. “This isn’t a normal skill set; it can’t be. So why do you think I can do it? Before, in Dornogor, you said, ‘The Marquis took longer, and he was uniquely qualified.’ The Marquis—as in the Marquis of Bone?”
Sylva had heard of the Marquis of Bone, but the Elders hadn’t taught her about the man. He hadn’t earned an Imperial Poem, hadn’t survived long enough to be important in the scope of the empire’s history. Not to the Malan Elders, at least. Still, she knew he had been powerful.
“The Marquis was one of our best pupils,” Alsarana said, settling in the grass across from her. “A shame how… reluctant the empire is to teach his deeds. He turned the war at the Battle of Kaelums Refuge, exactly the type of history your Elders should have taught you. Cowards. One and all.”
“The Bal lost an Eldar and two tribes at Kaelums Refuge. The Elders shared that much, though they didn’t elaborate on how.”
Alsarana dramatically shook his head, releasing a hiss that cut through the air. The fox sank down in its cage at the sound, and even Sylva had to fight the wave of fear threatening to take hold. The naga had infused that hiss with… something, she was sure of it. As she pushed the emotion aside, Alsarana smiled and began to speak.
“Osteocalcification was the Marquis’s true talent. Calling it a battle is… misleading. Rather, he activated a ritual array, more complex than even the one Althara wove for the First Breaking of Ysaril, and the Bal simply died.”
“He turned their bones into limestone?” Sylva whispered.
She would have called such a claim impossible—she should have said as much. But it made sense. Categorization. If Alsarana could hold a living mole by imagining it was a skeleton, surely he could have affected the bones with other types of Osteomancy. The scale was larger, much larger, but with a ritual array…
“Not just their bones. Every bone within the array. Every bone for miles.” Alsarana let out a hissing, laughing noise that made Sylva flinch.
Those tribes had civilians. Women. Children. Animals. She… she understood why the Elders hadn’t taught the truth of that “battle.” The Elders were patriots in that way, unwilling to teach—or even accept—that the empire could have been wrong in the past. Sylva found herself unsurprised by the truth. Of course the empire had its own share of crimes and problems. Every other empire and nation she had studied did, so why was hers any different? If anything, their lack of trust in her to reach her own conclusions bothered her. She should have known.
“And—” she began slowly, “you taught him how to do it?”
“An astute observation.”
“And you expect me to learn this… categorization even faster than he did?”
“No. No. No. I even told Casselia as much, you may remember. I believe you can learn my magics if you can grow the spine for it. But to exceed the Marquis… hubris. But someday, maybe you shall.”
Sylva stood suddenly, her hand clenching against the spider-webbed pattern on the leather handle of the spellstring, tight enough for her arm to tremble. She wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t be like that. She wouldn’t kill innocents. She wouldn’t kill children. Sylva felt a strand of resolve form at the thought, and she clung to it. She wasn’t like the Marquis.
“You see the truth of it,” Alsarana said with a gentle smile that felt far more menacing than it should. “The Marquis was broken; you have to be, to perform a ritual like that. Moreover, the array was formed from the bones of entire armies, and the scale of death we had to process for the materials alone would break you—and not in the right way.”
“Is that how you see me? Broken?”—Sylva almost spat the words. Was that how Krinka saw her? Casselia? Nothing more than someone broken enough to be a sociopath—dangerous enough that even history refused to speak her deeds.
“Hardly.” Alsarana shook his head as the tip of his tail wagged condescendingly at her. “The Marquis was a by-product of his moment in time. His traumas shaped his talents in ways your safe childhood never could. You—after all—didn’t grow up during a war. You didn’t lose your family to the Bal invasion.” Alsarana paused, thoughtful, before a sly smile ushered in a silk-soft question. “Silkborn don’t even have families, though, do they? No. So, are you broken? Aren’t we all, Sylva?”
“And what,” she asked, frustration and anger thickening her voice, “you think I’m a monster because of that? That I could kill innocents?”
“Yes,” Alsarana said simply, not even seeming to ponder the question. That, more than anything, made Sylva angry.
“How young you sound. What is innocence but a categorization? What is guilt but judgment made manifest? What is evil but someone else’s good? The Tul-Tul-Tar claimed they were heroes for what they did, that they were bringing peace to the world by conquering and enslaving all who opposed them. That is the truth of tyrants, Sylva: they are the most righteous of us all. History judges them by their legacy, not their actions.”
“I will not be a tyrant,” Sylva spat.
“Good,” Alsarana said, eyes twinkling. His tone softened, though it did little to quench her anger. “Do you know what the Marquis was best at, Sylva?”
“You know I don’t.”
“The Marquis was righteous. He believed, to the very core of his soul, that what he did was right. He would have killed every Dion child alive if it meant the end of the Bal’s rampage. What were Bal children in the face of that conviction? He reminded me of Casselia—utterly certain that the ends could justify any means. What do I think of you, child of silk? I think you are no less righteous than he. Your conviction simply has yet to find a way out.”
“And what—” she gestured, her hand cutting sharply toward the cage, the watchful creature inside—“these foxes will teach me how to find my conviction?”
“You seem to have found your spine at least, girl.” Alsarana looked her up and down with enough condescension that it sparked another surge of outrage in her. “Normally you’re so worried about decorum and right and wrong that you remind me of the groveling advisors in the capital. If it weren’t for Krinka’s insistence on your capacity and Casselia’s skill guiding her hand, I would have said you needed to face tragedy, before you could dabble in my magics. I dare not question whether Krinka and Cass have the right of it—they always do.”
Alsarana rose, his tail flicking in a series of movements that wiped away the carvings on the cage holding the fox. The creature watched the naga warily before turning its too-intelligent eyes on Sylva. She refused to meet its gaze as Alsarana spoke with a methodical calm that sent a shiver through her.
“You can’t yet justify to yourself why these beasts need killing? Fine. I will give you the experience you lack. Prepare yourself.”
Sylva gripped her spellstring as Alsarana began to hum. At first only a hush—nothing but a serpent’s hiss carried on the grass‑swept breeze. With every second the sound grew louder, sharper. Within a handful of breaths the noise became loud enough to make Sylva step backward, her emotions suddenly in turmoil. Whatever Alsarana was doing, she wanted it to stop.
First came fear—a rising uncertainty that threatened to sweep her sense of control away. The fox in its cage cowered and began to howl, biting the bones in a desperate bid to escape. Sylva stumbled backward, continuing to move away from the naga as he rose high on his coils, his form towering above the nearby grasses.
“Stop,” she rasped, desperate, as the noise continued its slow escalation. Alsarana turned to regard her, his eyes wild, almost frenzied, yet he spoke in an all‑too normal voice—as though he wasn’t hissing at all.
“Why, if I were to stop, how would the foxes know where we were?”
Her eyes widened and she whirled, desperate to find the threat. She could feel the terror fueling her panic, and she understood intellectually that there was no danger. Alsarana was performing a demonstration—nothing more. No amount of logic calmed her rushing heart or hitched breaths. It was as though her own body were rebelling against her—Sylva resented the feeling even as it pushed her panic onward.
“Why?” she asked, fingers seeking a pair of spellstrings that could help if it did come to a fight.
“It has become clear as crystal to me, Sylva; you don’t yet understand what you are dealing with. I am not asking you to kill innocents, civilians, or even people. I am asking you to slay monsters, and until you accept they are nothing more than that, you are useless to me. So—witness.”
As Alsarana spoke his threat, Sylva saw the first shifting of the grasses on the far side of the clearing, followed by the emergence of an all‑black fox with four tails twisting and twining behind it. Its narrow gaze flicked to the cage holding one of its kin, then to Alsarana, who chose that moment to end his hissing challenge and turn away, rapidly vanishing into the grasses, leaving her alone with the creature.
Sylva’s hands danced along the strings as she spoke a desperate plea, invoking the spell, “[Resonance of Drifting Skies].” Feeling the skill guide her motions, she watched pools of water nearby shift, turning from liquid into fog with startling speed. As the spell took hold, Sylva slid her fingers to the strands she had selected, tying the Tideweft into a ribbon of pink mist that stole her breath each time she touched it. She focused all her will on one desperate aim—maybe, just maybe, she could drown or suffocate the four‑tailed beast and survive.
The mist gathered around the fox as it slowly padded forward, seeming unbothered by the process. She felt the haphazard incantation take hold, the vapor solidifying around the fox’s head. It is working, she thought. She poured her concentration—her fears, her focus—into the incantation as her hands wove an ever more complex knot of associations and commands, drawing the inky Sulphen from the region around them with every twisting gesture of the strands.
“Pathetic,” the fox snarled in her mind, disdain dripping from every syllable. “Lord Felisar said we should fear those made of cloth. It is unlike him to be wrong, and yet I see no other explanation. He has misled me.”
Sylva felt a push against her incantation as though the Sulphen itself were twisted and drawn outside her control. The fog in the air solidified into water droplets before falling with a faint splash as the fox’s four tails began weaving a design of their own. The inky black strands of Sulphen Sylva had grown used to trembled and assembled into an intricate shape that reminded her of licking tongues of flame.
She tried to redirect the spell, using the same tactics she had in Tir Na Nog. If it had worked for Seraphis’s Radiant Flame, why shouldn’t it work against the fox’s magic? She began to weave a counter‑spell, seeking to draw strands of Sulphen away from the creature’s working. The Sulphen refused.
Sylva felt the first strands of silk in her feet catch flame, and then she began to scream. The fire was controlled, precise, consuming individual threads within the weave that formed her flesh. Singular lines of agony snaked upward as she collapsed, her legs unable to hold her weight while flames burned tendon and muscle. By the time the threads of fire reached her gut, Sylva’s screams were raw and broken. When the flames reached her throat, her voice had already fallen silent.
Sylva wasn’t dead. She wished she was. At least death would allow her to be reborn, whole, in the pool of water once more. Death would end this agony. Throughout it all the fox merely watched with an indifferent gaze. It was unbothered, and, if anything, seemed amused by her suffering. It crept close to her crippled form and slowly, almost reverently, licked the stream of tears that ran down her face before releasing a euphoric sigh.
“Lord Felisar was right about one thing, at least; the tears of your people are powerful indeed.”
Sylva blacked out, awakening a moment later in a pool of cool water, her gaze locked on the clear blue sky above, and as the voice of the Sulphen spoke to her she began to weep.
[Spell Obtained: Veil of Drowning Fog]
Sylva slowly stood, drawing herself from the pool with a slow breath. It was gone. The four tailed fox was gone. She repeated it to herself over and over again as she looked around the grassland around her. She felt a shiver as her gaze crossed the Maw of Vorithan in the distance. She found that each of the distant forms moving across the mound carried more… significance to her than they had before.
They had been mere foxes. Creatures. Beasts. No more. Alsarana was right. The fox-kin were monsters. The first had threatened her and begged. It had acted like a person who was in danger. The second though? The fox with enough power to enforce its will, it had been evil. How else could she describe such torture? And for what, to drink her tears? A shudder rolled through her and she pulled her eyes away from the maw. She sat on a nearby rock, lowering her head into her hands as she released another heavy sob.
It wasn’t that she was in pain, not physically at least—the pool had restored her to perfect health. Rather, she felt stripped bare, emotionally wounded in a way that she had never felt before. Maybe it was the memory of the flames. The controlled, slow burning fire had terrified her long before her torture, but nebulous fears were not the same as lived experience. Her body trembled and when she thought she had moved past the fear, past the pain, a sudden heaving sob would break through.
With every uncontrolled sob she felt further from being in control. She hated that feeling and worked to master herself. Despair and pain were not the right emotions for this situation, they worked to remove her control, not provide it. She took a deep breath and decided to stoke her rage instead.
Alsarana had done this to her. Intentionally. He had understood the consequences, had anticipated them. Her slow torturous death hadn’t been an accident, it had been a lesson. The realization ignited a rush of fury within her unlike anything she had ever felt before. Silkborn were taught to master their emotions, not fall victim to them. Sylva refused to suppress or divert any longer. Rage, at least, was cleansing. It would help her forget. What use was grief in comparison?
Sylva wasn’t sure how long she spent oscillating between grief and fury as she waited for Alsarana to return. Eventually the black serpentine form broke through the grasses to enter the clearing. Sylva shifted her grip to her spellstring and spoke, her words as cold as ice.
“[Resonance of Drifting Skies].”
The pools of water burst into a cloud of fog that surrounded Alsarana in a mass. She let her fingers dance across her spellstring, forcing her will into the spell with as much passion as she could. She channeled her grief and rage and spoke once more as the black lines of the Sulphen solidified, confirming the spell had taken hold.
“[Veil of Drowning Fog].”
Her fingers shifted in their movements without her guidance and began to modify her first spell. She poured more focus into the movements as she watched the inky Sulphen pattern twist and fold into itself. The fog gave her a new sense of danger as it gathered around Alsarana’s head and began to condense. She willed the spell to work, to fill Alsarana’s lungs with fluids instead of air. To drown the naga and make him feel an ounce of the pain he had condemned her to.
She felt the brush of another will against her spell before the Sulphen shifted and her working fell apart. The fog gathered around Alsarana reverted to liquid in a rush that left his serpentine hood dripping water. Rather than being upset by her attempt, Alsarana looked proud. Sylva found that did little to assuage her anger.
“You could have stopped it,” she said, accusation intermingling with her fury.
“And?” Alsarana asked as he tilted his head as though confused by her statement. She fingered her spellstring, considering another incantation before dismissing the idea.
“You could have saved me.”
“And what lesson would that teach?”
Sylva’s lips pursed as her hand tightened on her spellstring. She could feel the leather ridges of the handle pressing painfully into her palm. She found the pain a welcome distraction from her creeping fury. She spoke slowly, deliberately into the silence.
“That you would protect your student from a slow torturous death. That you would protect me.”
“How… counterintuitive to my goals. I was—after all—seeking to teach you the very opposite of that lesson. And—” Alsarana said placatingly, “—it seems to have worked. A new spell is ample reward for your struggles.”
“No,” she said, a silk-soft certainty in her voice. “It’s not.”
“Hate me if you must,” Alsarana said, shoulders rising in a careless half‑shrug while his tail flicked, stirring the Sulphen like dark sediment. “Dead gods know how many pupils have. But don’t confuse my method with cruelty for its own sake, Sylva. I didn’t burn you alive—the fox did. I neither armed it nor gave the command. I only let you see, and survive, the beasts’ true nature.”
Sylva’s mouth twisted. “So speaks the archer while the arrow quivers in its target: I didn’t wound you—I merely let the shaft enjoy its flight.”
Alsarana smiled at that, though the expression offered no comfort. He could explain, justify, excise—none of it dulled the echo of burning silk in her nerves.
“The measure of an action is in its consequences,” he said, tail coiling through the grass. “And here, I deem the cost worth the gain. You earned more than a spell tonight, Silkborn—you earned context. Experience. I granted what your Sect has long withheld: freedom.”
“That was no freedom,” Sylva replied, voice frosted with pain‑cooled anger.
“No?” Alsarana tilted his head. “You stand resurrected, unshackled from an illusion that beasts are brethren. When the cage next opens, you will possess three choices—kill, spare, or die in principle. Choice is the marrow of freedom. Comfort is merely its counterfeit. I gave you the experience to understand your choice, what greater freedom is there than that?”
Sylva met his gaze, the nearby pool’s reflected sunlight warm on her skin. “If freedom is only the right to choose which horror I swallow, then your liberty tastes of ash.”
Alsarana’s smile thinned. “Power cures that palate, child. Only the weak find every vintage bitter. Now, show me that you have learned.”
A rib‑bone cage drifted into the clearing, cradling a single orange, one‑tailed fox. A tremor fluttered through Sylva; she crushed it beneath a plate of ice‑cold resolve. This was no creature to pity. No person to spare. Meeting the fox’s stare, she set her fingers moving.
[Resonance of Drifting Skies] flowed through the spellstring as naturally as breath. White mist poured over the cage, then seeped between the ribs until the fox vanished inside a swirling veil. When the last hint of orange fur disappeared, Sylva whispered the second spell.
[Veil of Drowning Fog] answered.
The fog thickened, turned heavy—hungry. Sulphen currents threaded into the working, dark strands feeding the spell like roots drinking midnight water. Coughs rattled from within the vapor, then ragged, panicked wheezes. With each sound Sylva felt her grip tighten on fate’s loom: the fox’s struggle, her command.
She would not be the victim of fox‑kin. Not tonight. Not again. Never again—if she could help it.
