The pale rose shivered in the blizzard’s winds.

It was a fragile bloom, a white blossom pushing out of the perpetually frozen dirt. The beginnings of a bush struggling to survive the endless winter that enveloped the mountain above Snowbury.

A few men may have used it as a metaphor. A semblance of unexpected beauty in a place that would neither deserve it nor appreciate it. If the rose had been capable of hearing the aforementioned hypothetical metaphor, it likely would not have cared. Simply existing in as harsh of weather as this would be difficult enough.

Heat washed over the flower, a brief gust of welcome warmth enveloping its petals. The rose briefly bloomed, spreading wide to try and accept a potential, however unlikely, pollinator unto itself.

The cause of the unexpected heat walked past the flower without noticing it. Garen strode up to his castle and entered without preamble or fanfare, his only feeling towards the matter being mild satisfaction he’d finished dumping the invaders’ bodies back at Snowbury.

Pushing the heavy wooden door closed, he paused. His shoulders relaxed slightly.

Turning back to his castle, he noted the blood-stained walls and shrugged to himself. Hopefully anyone trying to be as dumb as the previous group would take them as a warning and leave before he had to deal with them.

His footsteps were silent in the empty hallways of the home he’d built himself, if it could be called a home. He granted it no sentimental value beyond the paltry pleasure he took from having made it. It was barely even a shelter, if he was honest.

No, it was more of a container. A labyrinthian construction with the sole intent of hiding Garen and his devices from the world.

He knew their twists and turns perfectly, and his movements were unhurried as he climbed a wall, went down several hallways, slid down a pole, and finally ended up in front of an enormous metal door.

It was constructed from a massive chunk of adamantite, most likely the largest in existence. A circular, hinged barrier with the sole intent of being impassable.

Approaching it, Garen slid his hand into the hole at its center, gripping the handle deep within. Giving it a twist, he retracted the mythril bars keeping it in place and pulled the door open.

A cold waft of stale air hissed from behind it.

Walking on in, Garen headed down the shallow staircase behind it, entering a cavern too large to have been formed naturally. He hadn’t dug this one, but he’d taken advantage of its existence, and no one and nothing had tried to take it back.

Cobwebs were strung about the ceiling, a colony of spiders having made their home there. Garen wasn’t sure where they were coming in from, or where the flies and bluebottles that served as their diet were produced, but they were hardly a concern.

There were no lights in the cavern. They were unnecessary to someone such as Garen, and a potential hazard to the carefully written and catalogued notes he’d taken regarding his work. Those notes were put inside folders and files, each one organized and reorganized so that he could obtain any information at a moment’s notice inside a long bookcase carved right out of the stone.

In front of him lay a disk. A complex piece of metals and gemstones built with exact precision to serve only one purpose… and yet without anything to power it, was little more than an especially expensive decoration.

Garen moved past all of it, approaching a tall cabinet. There was no need to reinforce it - if anyone made it past the adamantite door blocking the entrance, there would be little point in trying to keep it safe.

Removing a small key from behind his bowtie, Garen inserted it into the cabinet and opened it, taking a look at the contents inside.

He stared at the interior of the cabinet for a long moment.

His expression didn’t change in the slightest, but the cobwebs above him suddenly ignited, flames rapidly spreading from the point directly above him to the rest of the ceiling, a wreath of fire sitting at the top of the cavern.

Turning, Garen left the cabinet behind, rapidly making his way to the door. Inside the cabinet were five cushions. Four crowns rested on them, each one made out of some iridescent material, glittering gemstones embossing their delicate points and peaks. One cushion was empty, with only an indent to mark where it had once been.

His speed only increased as he went through his castle, following a path engraved in his mind until he was back at the front entrance.

Throwing the door open, he ignored the sudden hiss of evaporating snow and began his steady trek down the mountain, unaware of the blackened rose some distance away, its fragile blossoms all but incinerated.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Reld watched Malyro as he raised his wings to Snowbury’s infinite blizzard, a blast of yellow erupting from the ground beneath the unconscious men who had been dumped so unceremoniously by Garen some time ago. The men vanished with the beam, sent away to Carodai Melas to have their injuries healed and their equipment mended.

Malyro dropped his wings, breathing hard. Reld trudged through the snow, shouting over the wind. “You did good, featherhead!”

A tired grin crossed Malyro’s beak, and the Madarai shook his head. “I’m getting too old for this!” He roared back, his high-pitched voice somehow slicing through the sharp howl of the gale.

Reld shrugged. “What, you want me to do it?!”

“Ha!” Malyro laughed, throwing his head back. “Of course not! Their heads would end up in Cyrilia!”

Reld grinned at the old Madarai, slapping him on the back. “Then why are you complaining?!”

“What else am I going to do?! There’s nothing to do here but freeze!”

The two old warriors started slogging through the knee-high snow back to the warmth of Snowbury, good-naturedly arguing with each other as old warriors do. Neither of them noticed the black projectile hurtling from the sky.

It slammed into the ground behind them, sending a wave of torrid heat and hissing snow over them. Covering his head with his wings, Malyro rolled forward and twisted, coming up facing the blast point. Reld drew his rapier, senses ablaze.

A pair of crimson spotlights shone through the rapidly disappearing mist, and Reld felt a chill crawl up his spine.

Garen strode forward, eyes glowing with barely restrained fury. “Where is the crown?”

His words were delivered with all the punch and volume of an arbalest. They almost physically hurt to hear, but Reld forged through it. “What crown?”

Clamping one hand on Reld’s shoulder with an audible pop of crunching bone, Garen leaned close. Reld’s lips instantly chapped, and he felt what little hair he had left wither at the roots.”You called me a liar last time. Were you projecting?”

A violet line speared through the air and hit Garen in the side of the head, shearing away into the sky. He slowly turned to look at Malyro, whose wings were raised. A matching purple glow enveloped his claws, crackling silently. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Garen released Reld, and the man stumbled back into the snow clutching his arm. Standing before Malyro, Garen stared him dead in the eye.

Another pair of eyes opened on Garen’s face, and then another, and another. Eight pairs of blood-red eyes looked into Malyro’s own, and a faint pause followed.

A beam of red split the world in half as one final eye opened in the center of Garen’s forehead, the pupil a pulsating black. Reld felt the strength drain from his limbs, even at the distance he lay from them.

Malyro’s eyes glazed, and he nearly collapsed. Garen seized him by the shoulder, his voice unchanged. “Say that again.”

The Madarai’s head lolled, but he murmured something beneath his breath. All of Garen’s eyes narrowed, and then all but the original two closed, the world returning to normal.

Reld felt a great weight leave his chest, and he gasped for air. Malyro collapsed into the snow, his body limp. Reld couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

Garen advanced towards Reld, pulling him to his feet. “Where are the invaders?”

Reld stared at him, stared into the eyes that had been two of nine only moments ago, and realized that there had been no reason for Garen to spare those men at all. There would be even less reason for him to spare them now.

He knew what he was about to do, knew what the consequences would be. But he also knew that the alternative would be far worse.

“Carodai Melas,” He told Garen, his breath ragged in his lungs. “They were all teleported to Carodai Melas.”

Garen released him, and Reld staggered back. “Get me there.”

Reld shook his head. “I can’t do that kind of magic. Malyro’s the only one who can manage it.”

Turning back to Malyro, Garen indicated him. “Is that him?”

Reld nodded, and Garen produced a bottle from somewhere in his shirt. It was filled with a shimmering white liquid, shifting and sliding around in its confines.

Tilting Malyro’s beak open, Garen dumped the contents in, and the Madarai spluttered back to consciousness. The implacable immortal didn’t wait for him to finish recovering. “Send me to Carodai Melas.”

The hapless Madarai blinked at him, pupils dilated. “What?”

He glanced over Garen’s shoulder at Reld, who silently shook his head. Malyro’s eyes widened, and he looked up at Garen. “...Very well.”

Garen stood back, still watching Malyro with a gimlet gaze as he prepared the spell. “Send me to the wrong place, and I will burn your village to the ground.”

“Snowbury,” Reld corrected him automatically.

He saw the first bit of emotion he’d ever seen on Garen’s face. It was disgust. “I don’t care,” He told Reld, before looking back to Malyro. “Do it.”

Malyro had paled considerably in the past few moments, but lifted his wings regardless. A golden light began at Garen’s feet, gathering in intensity before rising.

It didn’t make it past his ankles.

The carefully prepared and expertly crafted magick shattered, breaking into shards of energy and falling to the ground, seeping into the dirt as though it were quicksand. Malyro stared at it in shock, and then back up to Garen’s face.

His expression was black with fury. “Explain.”

“I don’t know!” Malyro stammered, backing away from the immortal. “You… I can’t move you.” He finished futilely, his voice turning small.

Garen leveled a glare at him powerful enough to singe his feathers. Malyro shielded himself from the glare with his wings, bracing against the heat.

Turning around, Garen stared off into the white horizon for a moment.

“Where is Carodai Melas?”

Reld almost missed the question. “What?”

Garen looked over his shoulder at him. “Point to it.”

Startled, Reld looked back at the houses, using them as a reference, and then back to Garen. He pointed at an angle somewhat to the left. “That way, a few thousand miles.”

Bending his knees, Garen aimed himself in the direction Reld had indicated.

When he leapt, the impact shook the mountainside and knocked Reld down, making the ground itself shiver. With Garen’s presence gone, the sheer wind and snow invaded the scorching circle he had left behind. It would bury all evidence of his arrival within minutes, Reld knew.

Reld crawled through the snow, slowly, painfully making his way to Malyro. Putting a hand on his shoulder, Reld hoarsely asked, “Are you all right?”

Malyro lay flat on the ground, allowing the snow to cover him. Muted silence hung over the two, stretching out so long Reld began to grow worried.

Finally, the Madarai answered.

“I’m getting too old for this.”