(Jason, 16)

It seems I slept right through the night, after laying back down from when I awakened with grey magical power. The change in me was immense, and I can feel it. My ability to read magic has grown even sharper, too.

Now, Papa Samuel, Papa Michael, Niko, and I are checking our equipment in the meeting tent in the recovery camp we constructed an hour away from the Kelrar capital.

Niko has his Magus Sword, Gargoyle's Gaze sheathed on his left hip, his Sacred Sword, Mountain's Break, on his right. At the moment, he is dressed in light leather armor with black and dark blue clothes beneath it. The leather piece protecting his chest has the Crest of the Magi in the center in grey, a silver wolf to represent Mar facing it from either side. Normally, they would only have a single silver wolf, but I suppose Niko lays claim to his true life more than this current one.

Papa Samuel is wearing his normal, brown and grey robe, while Papa Michael has on light metal armor. As for me, I'm wearing my regular outfit of boots, pants, and vest, my star iron sword on my left hip.

I could probably handle all five of the ogre lords at once, except that it would likely destroy the surroundings and kill any civilians still alive, and we want to avoid that. Using my Sacred Sword is one possibility, but I'll stick with a simpler blade for now.

My Magus Sword would be overkill, even if I reduced and restrained its power. To do so to the point I wouldn't cause too much damage around me would be the same as using my star iron sword or my Sacred Sword, so there's no point.

After we verify the plans, Papa Samuel opens a gate to atop the outer walls of the Kelrar capital, then we walk through it, finding ourselves on one of its walls. The four ogres standing atop it don't even have time to react before they're obliterated by spells and cut through with swords.

Papa Samuel, Papa Michael, and I take off as Niko stays behind, his duty to the walls.

Imbuing my sword with power, I draw it, cutting through the ogres and corrupted I come across. A few times, I cast spells, blasting them to nothing. All of my attacks are designed to purify and accelerate decay, and I spread my scanning spell out, sensing my Papas' own scanning spells as I do.

I also detect not just the corrupted and ogres, but the few Kelrarans left. Turning, I move towards a house, running my sword through the back of an ogre as I jump over them, rolling through the destroyed doorway, my body protected from damage with my magic.

There are two corrupted wolves in here, and two bolts of fire end their lives. A flick of my wrist opens up the door to their cellar, which the corrupted had been striking at in an attempt to break, and I jump down, looking at the family huddled in the back, the papa and fourteen-year-old son both holding swords while shaking. There's also a mama and two younger children, a boy and a girl.

I open up a gate.

"Go!" I gesture to it, speaking in Kelraran, grateful my papas and mamas had seen fit to teach me as many languages as they could as I grew up. "Once you step through there, you'll be in a Marran camp set up nearby to protect those still alive. Go!"

They're nervous and scared, but I can tell it's of the spell and not me, they've already realized I'm not one of the monsters attacking this place.

"Just walk into it!" I tell them. "Like you'd walk through a gate! There are Marran and Varilan soldiers and mages there to protect against any ogres and corrupted that might come around."

They're not sure of the magic, but go the papa hesitantly moves through the gate. A moment after he's through, he pokes his head back through.

"Come on," he tells the rest of his family, who quickly follow.

I end the spell, then return upstairs and spot an ogre that entered to investigate the deaths. Its own life ends a moment later, my sword severing its head.

(Niko, 16)

Jason, in this moment, looks every bit the High Magus from my memories as Benjamin. Sure of himself, confident, and powerful. To find out that he had finally ascended into grey magical power, and that was the cause of last night's strangeness, was actually a relief to me.

I watch as he jumps off the wall, his fathers moving with him, and after a few moments, I turn and look at the ogres drawing near me, corrupted stalking towards me.

"They are not the only powerful ones here," I hold my hands out, drawing on my power as I do. "Be still, children of the Dark One."

As the monsters continue to approach, my spell works its power. A petrification spell, which I invented based off the gaze of the basilisk, back when I was Benjamin. Their bodies begin to turn to stone, and none reach me before they are nothing more than statues.

However, the spell wasn't just petrification. No, this is an altered version of the base spell, another creation of Benjamin's, which I remembered while Jason was helping me learn some of my old techniques.

"Attack all ogres and corrupted," I command, and the statues – the golems – move to attack their former allies.

As they do that, I approach the nearest gate and jump off the wall, staring at the massive hole in the wall. Shaking my head, I hold up my hands and channel my power, manipulating my magic to restore the walls and the gates to their old form. Metal is just a type of stone, in the end, and this was only iron, a very basic metal.

It takes me a few minutes to finish, and I do have to stop to handle some monsters, but I succeed in repairing the gate and wall. Sensing several monsters approaching in my scanning spell, I draw Gargoyle's Gaze and spin, cutting through the air.

A ripple in the air forms, blasting out, and where it passes, everything turns to stone, creating a twenty-foot-wide stone garden. Snow, monster, plant, and ground alike, for fifty yards. I sheathe my sword, then place my hands upon the ground.

Mustering my power, I generate golems, and not the kind that were former monsters. These ones, I make in their entirety, dirt rising up from the ground and yet nowhere, hardening into stone. Golden and black lines form across them, a single eye forming in the center of their heads.

"Guard the gates," I command. "Allow none to pass."

The golems rumble their confirmation of my command, and then I move back to the wall. My duty here is to repair the damage to the walls and kill any ogres and corrupted atop them while preventing more from entering.

We suspect there is an ogre lord still outside of the capital, and hope that my presence on the walls will draw it near. If it shows up, I will kill it. As I will know if any of my golems are destroyed, it will be easy to tell where it is, even if I'm on the other side of the city. A gate spell and a step, and I will quickly face it.

(Jacob, 16)

So many injured are here, so many people who have lost people to the ogres who invaded. Papa would likely ground Lina and I for life if he found out we snuck through. Sage Samuel was the one who opened the gate for our soldiers and healers to step through, and I am hoping Jason did not notice our presences in his scanning spell.

Hopefully, he had pulled it in close before they left to rescue the citizens of Kelrar's capital.

Right now, Lina is keeping watch with me as Tasha heals those she can. Tasha was the Magus of Holy, and her specialty has always been in healing. I am glad that Tasha came along with us. There is no need to worry for her safety, as she is a reincarnated Magus and she does go through Jason's training. With her healing powers, more lives can be saved than without.

To think that such an event is occurring, though… and that Jason avoided telling us about it. From what we can tell, the ogre lords – whatever they are – attacked the Kelraran capital to claim it as their stronghold for their war against Mar.

It seems the gods of the northern nations were, in fact, ogres, and the greater priests knew this and hid it. They feared the ogres, and without magic to back them up, they could do nothing for it. When Jason purged the mines near the Marran capital and caused the Marran royalty to accept magic, that angered them.

They want their land back, and they want their worship back. They want their fodder back. Their toys, as they see humans. That draws up a rage within me, one I must force back to avoid alerting anyone to my presence here.

Anyone not supposed to know of it, at least.

"You're quite far from home, aren't you?" A voice asks, and I feel myself stiffen, before slowly turning to face Sage Elena, who has her arms crossed over her chest. "Does your papa know you're here, Jacob?"

"No, ma'am," I answer.

"Then what are you doing here?" She asks. "This is no place for you, Tasha, or Lina, Jacob."

"It is the duty of royalty to ensure the safety of their soldiers during war," I state the excuse I came up with for when Papa found out and decided to interrogate us over our reasons. After his rant finishes. "And as our soldiers are partaking in a war, even if only in a defensive state, then it is my duty as Varilan royalty to see to it that they are safe. It would be inappropriate to leave them in a foreign land, helping our allies help a neighbor, without a representative of the royal family present."

Okay, maybe my wording faltered a bit while talking, because her glare is intense. I can see why Jason calls her the Mad Witch.

"And Lina, too?" She asks. "And Tasha? Think of your Papa, Jacob! He already lost your mother, what do you think he would do if he lost both of his children as well?"

"I am a Magus," I stand firm, putting my hand on the hilt of my sword. "I am trained for war."

"In a past life!" She says. "Not in your present one, Jacob! You may have some experience in fighting ogres and corrupted, Jacob, but that does not enable you to fight against the armies of them which are here! And if this is because of your rivalry with Alex-"

"This has nothing to do with that!" I interrupt her, knowing I will be chastised for that later. "Sage Elena, it is my duty as a prince and as one of the Magi to protect the people. That is what I am here for. If I need to use my Magus Sword, I will. Griffin's Claw is not your ordinary sword. Now, even if you mind, I am keeping watch for any ogres or corrupted which may draw too near."

I turn back around and cast my gaze back out across the snowy landscape. The Sage stays behind me for several minutes, before she turns and returns to healing the injured Jason and the two other Sages present are sending back this way.

Almost three hours after the assault on the capital began, I notice it. An ogre twenty feet in height, approaching us with a small horde of ogres and corrupted. Lina and I have an agreement: she will handle its troops, I will handle the ogre lord itself.

Unfortunately, Lina and I both agree upon seeing the horde that this is probably not something we can actually handle. We might have our Magus Swords and Sacred Swords, and someone with my own magical power level might have slain an ogre lord, but this?

There are far too many of them. Sage Elena is a noncombatant, too, even if she does know some combat stuff. I doubt that even with her and Tasha working with us, we could manage this horde and the ogre lord.

I send up a quickly prayer to the King and Queen of the Gods for a miracle to occur, because otherwise, we will die here. Those who could possibly handle this are currently within the capital walls, rescuing its citizens and soldiers and slaying its attackers.

Our Magus Swords specialize in attacks of light and darkness, but we cannot utilize their full power yet. We do not have the magical control nor the magical power to do that. Tasha's Magus Sword is nearly as bad as ours for this situation.

What do we do? No doubt Jason, Niko, and the Sages will not answer their comm plates unless it is one of them calling, which means we cannot alert them to the situation.

"Jacob," Lina joins me. "Want to do what we can to stall them?"

"They are preparing to charge," I tell her. "And even if we manage to fight, this camp will be overrun as we do. We did not anticipate this, and this ogre lord might be stronger than the one Alex faced, too."

My sister opens her mouth to talk as the horde charges, the ogre lord leading it, but she stops. We both freeze up at this sensation we hoped we would never feel in this life.

Divinity.

Only as the form appears do I recognize the god, and it is not Enaveka, which is the only god I think would come here who I would be happy to see, even if still nervous of.

Wrapped in silver light that fades away, the god is a wolf with pure-white fur and stands at nearly seven feet in height. Silver markings line its body, and it briefly looks at Lina and me with its silver eyes before turning its gaze to the stumbling horde.

Enamas, a beast god. A very, very powerful god of the Second Order that nearly killed us in the war. Only with Nolan's sudden appearance were we saved, and the High Magus had only managed to chase him away, not kill him.

If he is still around, then unless the god Jason spoke with lied, then he was bound up into an item. That means he has since managed to break free, and I think it might have something to do with our presences here.

He sensed five Magi, and after dealing with the horde, he is going to kill us. This is not good. I doubt even Jason could handle him.

Enamas inhales, his silver markings glowing, and when he exhales, a storm of wind, snow, and ice blasts out, his attacks ripping through the incoming horde, turning it into nothing but gore scattered across the mountain. All of that takes only a few seconds, and when he finishes, he turns and approaches us.

Oh, no. Oh, no no nonononono!

Even as fear fills me, I manage to find the hilt of my sword, but find myself paralyzed in terror only a moment later. This is not good. Not good! Jason! We need you! Please!

Enamas rumbles something I cannot understand, then turns and walks away, as if he did not just approach people who tried to kill him three thousand years ago. As if he did not just approach people who he tried to kill three thousand years ago.

It is only as he walks that I realize he is walking towards the capital. The god crouches, then jumps over the wall, soaring over it as he does. A moment later, I hear his howl, a song that rattles me to my core.

"We need to warn Jason!" I turn and run into the camp, locating Sage Elena, who was rushing towards us.

"Was that a god?" She asks.

"Will Jason respond if you call?" I ask and she pales, likely at my tone paired with those words.

Sage Elena pulls out her comm plate and activates it. The moments until Jason answers feel like an eternity.

"Jason!" I say before he can even speak. "Enamas is free from whatever prison you put him in, and he's on his way towards you right now!"

"Enamas?" Jason asks. "Hm. Strange."

"What is?" I ask. "Jason, he-"

"You saw him, right?" Jason asks.

"Yes!"

"And he let you live?" He asks.

"Yes!"

"Did he say anything?" I hear something screaming. "You know, I have to admire the tenacity of these soldiers, but they're going to die. Hold on a moment."

A few seconds pass, then I hear someone else speaking in the background, though I cannot understand them. Jason responds in that language, then a few moments later, he speaks to me again, back in Varilan Common.

"Did Enamas say anything?" He asks.

"Yes," I respond. "But I didn't understand it, it was not in the ancient tongue."

"What was it?" He asks, and I repeat what I heard. "Was that 'a'iku' or 'a'ilkul'?"

"What's the difference?" I ask.

"It completely changes the meaning of what he said."

"What language was that?"

"Which was it?" He asks.

"The first, I think," I answer. "Jason, what was that language?"

"The language of the gods," he answers. Of course he knows that language, too. "He said 'tell Papa and Mama I said hello. I will let you live, and am going to go greet the Great Master'. Had it been 'a'ilkul', it would have been 'I am going to go kill the Great Master'."

"Why did he tell us to tell his papa and mama 'hello'?" I ask.

"Well, he used more formal words for them," Jason says. "But Varilan only has 'papa' and 'mama'."

"Jason!"

"I don't know," he answers, and I can just picture him shrugging. Something screeches, and I realize that even as he talks, he is still fighting things in the capital. "From what I know, the gods which sired Enamas were the Divine Leviathan and the Divine Kraken. Oh, I see him. Ah, I think you misheard. It was definitely 'a'ilkul'. Bye!"

He sounded serious and panicked when he ended the call, and I can tell that Sage Elena and I are both worried because of that. Jason is about to be attacked by a god of the Second Order, and there is nothing we can do about it except hope that he manages to fend it off.

"He is only violet in power," I shake my head. "Even with those swords, there is not a chance Jason can win this fight."

"He reached grey last night," Sage Elena tells me as she performs another call. "But you are right – as he is now, Jason will not be able to win that fight."

"What happened?" Sage Samuel responds to the call immediately.

"Samuel," she says, and I can hear the panic in her voice. "The ogre lord out here came after the camp, and a god showed up. He's in the capital now, and Jason is fighting him."

"Let Michael know!" Sage Samuel exclaims. "I'm on my way!"

(Jason, 16)

I end the call and stare at Enmas, who snarls as I pull Harbinger and Calamity from my spatial storage. He was one of the few gods I had to draw both against, three thousand years ago. Based on my memories, I sealed him into a shrine, and when I checked on it this morning, he was still sealed, even if it had weakened with time.

Looks like he managed to break free after that. I knew I should have strengthened that seal, but I wanted to have as much power as possible available for the battles here. His vengeance for me runs deep, because of what I did to him back then.

"You really don't want to do this," I tell Enamas in his native tongue as I spread out my scanning spell.

I want to make sure no innocents will be caught by the attacks. A battle against a god requires no holding back. Eleven fully-powered Magi were losing against this one, too, and I only managed to chase him away initially.

Were it not for the dragons that sacrificed their lives back then, I never would have managed to seal him into the statue. I found him too early, when I was still regaining my true strength. That is how powerful this god is. Only a magician of the greater grey magical power could possibly stand against him.

"I really want to do this," Enamas growls in the language of the gods. "After what you did to me back then, Nolan, I will enjoy the taste of your flesh. Your mother's wrath will be worth it."

"You might wound me," I tell him. "You might severely injure me, but you will not kill me."

"Keep dreaming!" He snarls, before charging me.

I stab Calamity into the ground while slicing Harbinger through the air. The ground within a hundred yards of me rends, ripping open as lava explodes out in geysers, turning snow to steam. At the same time, a ripple of pure magical power washes out as buildings crumble around us, the ripple altering the properties of anything it comes into contact with.

Enamas continues running, his paws hitting ice that forms to protect him from the damage, my ripple of magic splashing off of him, though his fur darkens lightly as it does, only to restore after a few moments, by which time I'm already moving.

"Tch!"

I bring Calamity up into the air, then strike downwards with it. The space in the path of its slash tears, a sound like shattering glass filling the air as the strike travels towards the god. The spell expands, widening, and the god dodges around it, allowing the attack to continue on its path, rending everything it comes across.

By that time, I'm already up in the sky, stabbing downwards with Calamity. Lightning strikes down, hitting the ground and the god in various places, decaying everything it comes into contact with. I stab downwards with Harbinger as the god's fur, which had begun to grey and blacken, returns to normal.

As the ripple of pure magic is deflected by the god's fur, it exhales a breathe of snow, ice, and wind at me. Crossing my swords, I summon up three barriers, their shimmering grey power layering together to resist the attack, though it begins to crack. I add on more barriers as I summon up a new attack, dozens of small meteors forming in the air behind me.

Pulling my swords back, I allow both to imbue the meteorite storm with their power, as they so truly desire to do.

As my barriers break, the god's breath attack striking at me, the hundreds of meteorites I summoned descend. Recreating my barriers, I pray to the King and Queen of the gods for a miracle. That they step in, or I get an opportunity to summon Midlaris with one of the World Pearls, or something that gets me out of this happens.

As I am now, Enamas will kill me. I need to go up three magical power levels to contest him.

(Alex, 16)

"And so I says to him," I take another swig from the stein. "I says to him 'ya ain't a merchant, you're a goblin who stole my purse!' So then he just looks at me and says 'well, there ain't nothing in it, so it was a loss for both of us!'"

Barry and Sarah laugh as I drain my stein, then call for another. We finally managed to get the merchant to his destination a few hours ago, and now, we're hanging out at the local tavern, enjoying some drinks.

I tried contacting Jason to see how things were going in Mar, but he didn't answer, so he's probably busy right now. I've heard Jacob mention a few times that Mar was hoping he could come and teach a few people for a bit, too, and not just the ones learning here under him already. Whenever he trains us, he does get pretty into it, so I can understand him not noticing his comm plate is being contacted.

We did talk this morning, though. He contacted me through my comm plate to inform me that he was okay, since I called Sage Samuel last night after that incident. According to Jason, his magical power went up to grey, and it seemed to have an effect on all of the Magi. Jason says it might happen each time one of us reaches grey.

We'll have to wait a year or two for Niko to reach grey to find out for sure, though, but what's a year or two after three thousand of them, right?

I might be a bit drunk right now, but that's okay. I gave myself a pre-drunk talk to make sure drunk me knows not to kiss Barry, even jokingly. As long as I listen to myself, everything should be fine.

Sarah suddenly looks curious about something and nudges me.

"A woman just walked in," she says. "Older woman, and her eyes are grey."

"What?" I look around, spotting the woman.

She looks to be around fifty or so, and is dressed for the cold, a fur scarf around her neck, a shawl covering her body. Even for an older woman, she still has the grace and beauty of her former youth. She is dressed in black and purple, and my gaze turns to the two men walking in behind her. Both have platinum-blond hair, like the woman, though their eyes are blue as well.

Both are dressed in blacks and purples, and were it not for the lack of certain accessories, I would think one of them were Jason.

He looks identical to Jason. At least, almost. But I know he ain't Jason. First, Jason would probably be wearing a vest right now, not a tunic, and second, Jason is almost never without his accessories.

Third, he ain't down here, he's up in Mar right now. Unless he's been lying to me, but I doubt that, Jason wouldn't lie just to hang out with people. Plus, the other guy looks like he might be related to the Jason lookalike, maybe only a few years older than us.

They look around, and seeing that the tables are all full except for ours, make their way over to us.

"Do you take issue if we sit here?" The woman asks in a kind, authoritative, and very heavily accented voice. "All of the other tables are full, and we are hungry."

"Go ahead, go ahead," I gesture to the table, then look at the lookalike. "Ya look like a friend of mine."

"I do?" He asks, his voice just as accented as hers.

"Yeah," I nod. "Only my friend is sexier than ya, and probably more powerful. He's the strongest. Lookin' at ya closer, you're a year or two older than us, ain't ya?"

"I'm eighteen," he answers.

"Yep," I say. "So ya only look like Jason, ya ain't him. Thought my drunk brain might be hallucinating."

"Why are you drunk so early?" The woman asks.

"We're just hanging out here," I answer. "Tomorrow, we'll be heading back to Varil City, where we live. We came out here as escorts to a merchant, in case he had problems with bandits and ogres and corrupted and monsters, and-"

"And you're drunk," Barry puts a hand over my mouth, grinning at her. "Alex likes to get drunk after a job well done, especially when he's worrying about his boyfriend. Eek! Stop licking my hand!"

"Stop putting it in front of my mouth," I grin at him. "And I ain't worrying 'bout Jason, he can take care of himself. Mind if I ask where ya three are from? I ain't recognizing those accents of yours."

"We come from the edges of the Unwild Lands," the woman answers as a waitress shows up with three plates of stew and bread and three steins of ale. "We decided to stop here on the way to Varilsy."

"Watcha going to Varil City for?" I ask. "And only tourists call it by its actual name, erreyone else calls it Varil City."

"We received a letter from the Varilan prince," she answers. "Inquiring about some history. I decided to come and give it to him in-person."

"Inquiring about some history?" I ask, then sober up immediately as I realize who she must be. Jacob mentioned during the training camp that he had sent a letter somewhere. "You're from the Dragon Clans."

"That is the fastest I have ever seen you sober up," Barry suddenly looks concerned, and I can sense both him and Sarah shifting in a way that tells me they're ready to fight, if needed. "What are the Dragon Clans?"

"There aren't many who know of us," she says, her gaze fixed on me. "And you seem to know about the letter we received, to draw that conclusion."

"I'm friends with Jacob," I speak in the ancient tongue. If I'm right about this, then she will understand me just fine. "And the Dragon Clans rarely interact with anyone but themselves. That is a policy which has been in place since before the Magi went to war with the gods."

I pray to the King and Queen of the Gods that I did not just make a mistake. Those are definitely her actual eye color, which means that she has grey magical power. She is stronger than Jason.

"Indeed," she smiles. "And so imagine our surprise when we find a letter inquiring information about the Traitor using both of his titles known to others."

"The Traitor?" I ask.

"Yes," she answers. "My great uncle, and the being known as the High Magus, the Magus of Magic, and the King of Magic. Among our clans, he is the Traitor."

Oh, no. This is not good.

"So," she says. "I am traveling to Varilsy to find out why their prince wishes to learn about him."

What did Nolan do to earn that title among his own people?