The visions sped through Arrin’s mind, wild images and sensations so fleeting he could barely process them; others so vivid he felt the other’s thoughts and feelings. His father’s thoughts and feelings, such was the Flesh Craft done to him. He had read of it in tomes in the Royal Librarium, that the memory of one’s ancestors was ingrained in one’s very being, and could be revealed with the right craft.

So Ambrose peeled away his mind, flaying it layer by layer to reveal another vision, another memory of his father. What so engrossed him in the task Arrin did not know, and could not stop to ponder as he was also trapped within the visions burning through his thoughts.

Bright sunlight. A boy’s laughter. A woman’s smile. A meadow of yellow flowers, their soft scent suffusing his senses. The vision focused upon the boy. He was running with a string ending in a paper kite, aloft on the warm summer winds.

He felt Thael’s joy. “He’s getting bigger,” he said.

The woman sitting beside him smiled, her face radiant in the sun’s light. “Promise me one thing,” she whispered, resting her head to his shoulder. “That you will come back to me. To us. You live on, Thael Tanaka, so that no matter how briefly we live in these moments, you will be here so we can make them together.”

“I will,” Thael said.

Arrin screamed ragged as the vision was torn away from his mind.

“Enough,” one of the shadowed men said. “He will die if he is channeled any longer.”

“His father is the Kingmaker,” Ambrose hissed. “With his knowledge and experience of the arch king we will know his methods, his tactics. He may not even know of his son’s existence, he must not. Then he can be turned to us once the boy is dead.”

A rapping on the door drew the minister’s attention, the other shadowed man sliding open the shutter. After a muffled conversation the door opened, a soldier bursting through. He knelt before the minister, head bowed as he presented the sealed letter.

Ambrose pried off the black wax seal, frowning after a moment’s reading.

“This is unprecedented,” he murmured, handing the letter to the shadowed man beside Arrin.

“We should have never let the dwarves settle here,” the shadowed man growled. “Whatever it is, it can be brought down just as a wrynn. It will not be long before it reaches our gates.”

“Agreed. The host will distract it long enough for the eclipse. Then it will no longer be of importance.”

had carried Arrin up the spiral stone steps, in their arms. He watched as the torchlight spun around him. Falling in and out of consciousness, Arrin found himself lying on a stone floor. The harsh sun greeted his eyes, and he winced, covering his face. The winds howled and whipped overhead. He could see the boots of the shadowed men and the minister past them, gripping the tower’s parapet. Even from such heights, Arrin could hear the cries of battle and the steady methodical beat that thundered below, growing ever closer.

Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

“War is man’s true condition, tearing away all hypocrisy to be replaced with a truth – that he must kill or lose that which he loves most: His own life,” Ambrose turned to Arrin. “With your death, there shall be no injustice, for the scales will be tipped to balance. Every life will be equal. With your death the Empire will be remade forevermore whole. I thank you Arrin, for the sacrifice you shall make. For with your sacrifice, people will know hope. Hope that there shall be no monarchy to muzzle their minds nor evermore send their mages upon the powerless.”

The shadowed men pulled Arrin up to stand, dragging him to face a doorway filled with darkness – a void. It seemed to absorb the light around them. Arrin did not struggle, could not, as his mind was numb. He gazed into the darkness, whimpering. Ambrose tapped the frame and burning glyphs surrounded the void, the wall of black a roiling mass now humming with eldritch power.

“Know that we do not actually need your sacrifice, merely your appearance in it.” The minister smiled. “Do you know of the Ether? How could you? Not even eighteen years old. The sad truth is, Arrin…” Ambrose leaned to Arrin’s ear, whispering, “There are no mages. Not truly. They were never born, but made.”

He held Arrin’s wrist. Arrin struggling with desperate futility.

“This is a gate. A door to the Ether, the primordial plane linked to this world. Do you wonder where the Mythic have gone? Perhaps they never left this world. Perhaps they are waiting in the Ether, to come back into the light. Unfortunately for you, those before must know the living in order to inhabit our plane.”

Slowly, inextricably, Arrin’s hand was forced into the gate. He felt immediate pain. He screamed. It was as if every fiber of his being was being ripped apart and unmade. The minister pushed his arm into the darkness up to his shoulder. Arrin fought like a trapped animal, but he could gain no leverage. Ambrose then pulled him back. The shadowed men, the Wraiths, released him and stepped into the gate of darkness.

Arrin saw that his arm was now gone, burned away not from heat, but biting cold. The pain numbed his already wounded mind and he surrendered into darkness.