“History is a fickle thing. It’s not something one can easily trust. After all, like magic, our history is oft commanded by the minds of corrupt and biased men.”

- Grand Summoner Myrek

The dragonfire melted through the soldiers’ flesh as they screamed in agony, dropping their weapons and falling to the ground, knocking over their allies like flaming dominos. The others nearby recoiled in fear, stumbling away from the boiling corpses. Several retched violently from the stench. The fallen’s armor had done nothing for them, merely serving as a humanoid cooking pot for the bloody soup within.

“Give in!” a man shrouded in a swirling silver mist called. He sat astride the neck of a small black dragon. The creature’s eyes glowed purple, piercing the magical veil which floated around them. “I don’t wish to bring ruin to this kingdom, but your resistance compels its destruction!”

His left hand bore a black gauntlet surrounded by glowing orbs, and his right gripped a pearl-encrusted box the size of a grown man’s fist strapped to his waist. Black furs lay across his shoulders, resting heavily over his golden robes, but failing to conceal the shriveled black raven skull that hung from his neck by a leather thong.

With a flick of his wrist, he drew three golden rectangular pieces of parchment from the box at his waist. He examined them and grinned.

“You don’t scare us, Alyster!” a woman shouted from behind a wall of shields. The burning men had sacrificed themselves for her, throwing themselves in the way of the magical dragonfire. “Leave here before our prince arrives, or you’ll be sorry!”

The shields parted and Alyster could see the angry blonde woman drawing cards of her own. Without phrase or flourish, she slammed one into her own silver gauntlet, a whirlwind of green magic surrounding her and her men. It danced like the aurora borealis around them, and the force of it lifted her into the air.

The light washed over the screaming masses of burning flesh… and the impossible happened. Though the soldiers would’ve been doomed in any other world, even at the hands of the most skilled of healers, the magic somehow began to reverse the process which had caused the carnage, putting out the fire and forming new flesh where only ash remained.

Alyster chuckled. But the sorceress wasn’t done. She pressed another card to her gauntlet, a red energy firing out of the metal glove on her hand and launching itself into the dragon rider’s face. It exploded as it crashed against the pearly barrier in front of her opponent, and one of the orbs around his own gauntlet blinked out of existence.

Alyster smirked. “You’ll have to do better than that if you wish to harm me, Celeste.”

The woman sneered, slapping a third card to her gauntlet. This time, bright indigo energy coursed around her hand, a monstrous body erupting from it. It grew in size and reshaped itself until a stone jaguar crouched low to the ground between them, ready to pounce.

Instead of attacking, however, Celeste held out her hand, grasping at an invisible power and tugging. The stone cat roared, a viridian aura erupting from it and absorbing into the caster’s gauntlet.

“Come to me!” she called, sweeping a hand down past her waist. She drew forth another card, one which appeared the same as the others, but was vastly more powerful.

Raising the card into her hand, Celeste channeled the magic she’d stored within her gauntlet, the rainbow rays of power twisting through the air to crash into the parchment in her hand—her last resort.

Alyster’s smirk grew into a cocky grin. “You think summoning your Monarch will do you any good, Celeste? I’ve planned for that.”

He grasped the raven skull on his chest, bringing the back of it to his mouth and blowing. The shrill sound of damned souls wailing pierced the air, and Celeste’s magic flickered. Then it vanished, and she collapsed to the ground. The soldiers dropped to their knees, some with foaming mouths, others joining Celeste in her curse-induced spasms.

Alyster patted the side of his mount’s neck as he rode beyond the wall of fallen soldiers, crushing some beneath the dragon’s feet, and flames floated out of its mouth, swirling around the mount and its rider and joining the magical mist. He smiled coldly at the men he could see standing atop tall walls rising up from the ground in the distance—the last barrier before he could reenter the kingdom.

It was time to summon his own Monarch.

“Come to me, Gryselle,” Alyster commanded, snatching a new card from a secondary compartment on the deck box. He whirled it through the air, siphoning the mist around him like a sponge. The card began to glow as it absorbed the magic, and Alyster placed it atop his gauntlet. The thick piece of parchment erupted into flames, exploding upwards in a column, and a savage form riddled with spikes appeared within, floating like an embryo.

“So,” it sneered, its voice a dark and mutated feminine growl, “the Dark Summoner calls to me again. Alyster Oble, what do you bid of me?”

“I need merely one thing, Gryselle,” the mage calmly replied. “Help me prevent this year’s Testing.”

“As you wish.”