Evinda walked through a forest grove filled with miserable, broken people. They were dressed in tattered and soiled clothes, tightly gathered around fires for warmth in the cold night. Even the soldiers standing guard around them wore damaged and askew armor. In total, they numbered perhaps in the hundreds, but little more than that. It was hardly

She saw an older man, with grey and green hair and wearing a familiar crown. She only saw him from the rear at first. He huddled with a number of commanders, one clad in a marshal’s uniform. They only spoke in indecipherable murmurs as far as she could determine. The crowned figure appeared disturbingly familiar. As she rounded the gathering, the face was unmistakable, even with the scraggly beard growing around its chin.

Rohmhelt, noticing her, looked up into her eyes with a loving, though fatigued expression, accentuated by wrinkles wreathing his eyes and mouth. A stray thought crossed her mind. At least we’ll grow old together.

She awoke just then, her hand resting on his cheek as they lay in bed. The noble manor they stayed at on their march was among the better ones they had seen on their long journey from Karmand. As they neared central Methrangia, especially the capital itself, the estates grew more opulent and the manor houses ever larger. Rohmhelt noticed little of those changes as they never interested him. He noticed little of anything, for that matter. Even her hand on his cheek drew little attention.

This was especially true as he lay awake, his eyes focused on the ceiling above him. Evinda wondered at first if he had fallen asleep with his eyes open. She had seen that display more than a few times. On the first instance it had frightened her.

“I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asked in a whisper, looking at her with a smile.

“No, no. I just woke from a peculiar dream,” she laughed, masking her discomfort with it.

He let out a muffled groan.

“I hate dreaming. It seems that all of my worries like to stalk me in the dark,” he murmured. “It happened again tonight. That vision with my father having his eyes….”

“You don’t need to finish that,” she said.

His eyes flickered toward here before resuming an empty stare toward the ceiling.

“It’s been getting closer, more real each time. Tonight it truly felt as though it had already happened and….”

He trailed off and his hands tightened. Evinda grew worried.

“Is there something else?” she asked.

He breathed deeply several times, wincing as he did.

“When we’ve traveled, I’ve seen almost every village from Karmand to here in ruins, burnt corpses everywhere, land split asunder… I just can’t even imagine how that’d all happen.”

Visions of that sort were not merely a plague on her husband. Evinda had seen such glimpses, not only in her dream from minutes before. Matriarch Yldrina, too, had told Evinda of analogous apparitions that plagued her own eyes. In recent days, even Lohs had seen the same. Escalating convergence and frequency made their message impossible to ignore.

“I know it’s been hard seeing all of that. I can’t even imagine it,” Evinda said to reassure him. She had no reason to confess that she had seen those visions herself. “But it’s given you a chance to prepare in a way that no other who faces such disasters can hope to have. A blessing of an odd sort.”

“You really think that all of that will happen?” he asked her, grasping her hand tightly.

“I only know that sometimes there’s truth in the darkest dreams.”

~~~

Gathered together, the angels Parlon, Omonrel, Jagreth, Gorondos, and Myrvaness had all excluded Duronaht from their deliberations. Duronaht bitterly waited in his command tent while the angels met in a cave not far from the campsite about a seven days’ march from Methrangia’s outskirts.

While he waited, he humored a briefing meeting with Marshal Vildrious, who took every effort to reassure the king that the armies he brought with him were ready for battle. He pointed at the map laid out on the table in the tent’s center to reassure Duronaht that the men were marching at a suitably motivated pace.

“Again, Your Majesty will find that the 7th Division marched fully seventeen miles in a day. The Emperor’s army can’t do that. Right, moving toward the southwest, Marshal Tabrohn’s armies are sweeping upward to support our flank. He’s not moving quite as quickly as us, but…” Vildrious babbled while Duronaht pretended to listen. His thoughts focused instead on what exactly the angels could be discussing in secret.

“Why is he slower?” Duronaht interjected.

“Oh. Again, we’ve been marching very quickly. Faster than we even intended. Tabrohn is still moving his men at what we would almost always consider an appropriate…”

“Tell him to march faster. I won’t tolerate a weak link in our army,” Duronaht commanded.

Vildrious nodded just as a messenger burst into the tent. He was small, barely a grown man, and had his red robes covered in mud. Carrying a scroll of parchment bound together by a heavy wax seal.

“Your Majesty, this message comes from the capital. The seal of the Emperor himself,” the messenger declared.

Duronaht grabbed the scroll hastily and dismissed the messenger while Vildrious awkwardly remained in the room. However, the King gave Vildrious’s meager presence no heed as the scroll commanded far greater attention. There was no ambiguity in what his father had written to him.

“You are in violation of every duty you have to your kingdom assisting these malcontents. You now bring them to my doorstep, along with the army I let you have. I summon you to explain yourself immediately. You are to come alone. No angels are welcome in my presence. Should you seek to become an obedient son once again, I will grant my forgiveness. Should you not, I shall renounce your title as King of Zarmand and your position as my son. Realize that this is not a matter for debate. This is my final attempt to reason with you.”

His first impulse was to ignore the letter. In fact, it seemed the single easiest course. His father’s missives were not to be taken at their word as they could be written in a fit of rage. As he pondered his own feelings on the matter, however, he knew that if he did not answer at all he would be branded a coward in front of the entirety of the Imperial Court. The thought of the Emperor crowing about the spineless of his second son to a bunch of simpering sycophants was an infuriating one.

“Your Majesty, is something the matter?” Vildrious asked while Duronaht sat pondering his response.

The King shook his head in response.

“No. You can keep going,” Duronaht groaned.

As Vildrious went on and on, Duronaht planned his response to his father. After considering the perilous choices before him, he decided that his only course was to ride and meet his father at Solnaht Citadel and confront him openly about what stood to be lost. If Emperor Covifaht couldn’t be persuaded, perhaps the Imperial Court could. Isolating his father and turning the entirety of central Methrangia against him emerged as an enticing opportunity. Duronaht knew those lords to be vacillating in their loyalties, but with a sufficient push they could be brought to heel.

Once Vildrious had departed, he sought out the angels meeting on the camp’s periphery. He found Omonrel and Parlon engaged in a fervent discussion that they promptly abandoned once Duronaht came close enough where he could plausibly hear.

“Where is Nethron?” the King asked before either angel could speak.

Omonrel’s face betrayed a disappointed grimace before he returned to a stony and confident visage.

“Many have sought his guidance in wielding the Auras. Nethron felt it best that he should tend to them,” Omonrel assured the king. “His greatest contribution is done.”

“I’ve heard there are villages and cities pledging themselves to him. Will he make sure that those places join my realm? I didn’t invite him to Zarmand for him to become another rival,” the King fumed.

“I assure you that Nethron has no such ambitions, in part because he has no ambitions at all,” Parlon said with lyrical cheer, drawing a smile from Omonrel.

“Nethron is a tinkerer,” Omonrel added. “He is easily distracted and this is one of those times.”

“Hrm. Very well,” Duronaht sighed. “Father has summoned me and…”

“I know,” Omonrel interrupted.

“How did you kn…?”

“Word spreads among messengers. They love the importance they feel from sharing interesting information,” Omonrel said with a smirk.

Disgusted by the ingratitude of his messengers, Duronaht tossed his hands in the air.

“That’s a problem for another time. I’ve decided I should go see father,” Duronaht declared. The two angels exchanged a brief glance as though they had anticipated his words.

“I suspected that you would wish to confront his injustices before the whole of the Imperial Court,” Parlon responded. “With your agreement, I should like to accompany you on this journey.”

Duronaht wanted to refuse the offer, but a voice in his head began to convince him otherwise. It was a voice not his own, but he listened to it just the same. He tried to assert his reason that his father would rage, perhaps violently, if Parlon was in his court again. The voice told him, however, that this might be to his advantage. If the Emperor proved himself an unstable sovereign, his court might abandon him. Yes, Parlon would be essential.

Omonrel stared with a fierce gaze at the King while he pondered his decision.

“I would be honored if you would join me, my Angelic Lord,” Duronaht smiled, announcing his decision gladly. “I’m sure that you can help convince the court, even if we’re unable to move my father.”

Parlon smiled, his amethyst eyes flashing. Omonrel, too, appeared greatly satisfied by the King’s determination. The voice in his mind influencing his thoughts faded away. He spent only a few moments pondering the oddity that this disturbance passed so suddenly.

“Upon my return, summon Nethron to me,” Duronaht asserted, once again fully confident that his thoughts were his own. “I need his assurances that he will keep these masses swearing allegiance to him in our fold.”

Omonrel squinted at the King and nodded. What exactly that apparent trepidation meant, Duronaht didn’t care to discover, at least not at this moment.

“Your Majesty is wise and I will endeavor to ensure that Nethron is not veering from our joint mission,” Omonrel said. “I assure you that he will obey my commands.”

Though that promise rang hollow for Duronaht, he decided to take comfort in it. It was all he could do as he set off with Parlon at his side and a small detachment of Solnahtern.

~~~

Never had Duronaht dreaded stepping into his father’s great crystal-ceilinged reception hall more than that moment. He expected the Emperor to unleash his most tempestuous tirade ever, and to do so with a court loyal to the Emperor jeering at Duronaht. It was the thought of those laughing faces that bothered him most. He had always enjoyed the court’s affections, but today would be different. Even with Parlon at his side, he knew that he would struggle against his father’s wrath. Indeed, it was precisely because Parlon was at his side that his father’s rage would be so terrible.

Court Minister Bolgrelt had warned Duronaht that his father intended to only have his loyalists, mostly from the cities and provinces immediately bordering Methrangia proper, at the court that day. Parlon advised Bolgrelt to be elsewhere when the confrontation occurred as the angel said, “I do not want to see the Emperor try to turn you against us. You have been one of our truest friends and you would honor that friendship by abstaining.” Heeding Parlon’s advice, Bolgrelt elected to travel eastward toward Duronaht’s armies.

In the hall’s antechamber, Parlon stood at Duronaht’s side while the King tried to anticipate his father’s moves. That was never an easy task. Various insults, interruptions, and discourtesies were to be expected, anything to rattle his opponents. It was predictable, but almost always effective at the same time.

“Be strong, my king,” Parlon said lyrically with a broad smile. “You are a greater man than your father has ever been.”

Duronaht did not respond. He looked ahead blankly at the doors, waiting for them to open. Emperor Covifaht was keeping him waiting to demonstrate the Emperor’s dominance. Petty and typical. It was still one more insult and Duronaht bristled at it.

At last the doors opened and a member of the Solnahtern stepped forward. He recoiled at the sight of Parlon, but quickly attempted to compose himself in front of the King.

“You may enter, Your Majesty,” he said solemnly.

Parlon’s amethyst eyes turned to Duronaht, but revealed nothing. Duronaht hoped the angel would provide him with a simple path through this trial. He saw no such answer. An uneasy air radiated around Parlon, one that Duronaht could perceive and yet not understand. His feelings of confusion did not relent when he looked away from Parlon to gaze straight ahead at his father’s throne. The world seemed distant, almost fake. A veil had fallen between him and it. Under this haze, Duronaht, King of Zarmand, entered the hall to face his father.

Emperor Covifaht sat motionlessly upon his throne, grasping his scepter with implacable resolve while dressed in his full imperial regalia, sparing no piece of ornamentation. Like a knight in his full plate, the Emperor was fully prepared for battle. Duronaht felt, without his father having to say a word, that his title of “King of Zarmand” meant nothing in the presence of such power.

"Father," Duronaht said proudly, attempting to mask his trepidation.

"My son," Covifaht began grimly. "You have disobeyed my order. Not only was it my order, but it was the command of the High Angel. Instead, you have given sanctuary to the rebel angels and now you bring one into my midst."

"Father, I believe..." Duronaht began, but was instantly cut off.

"After I told you I never wanted him or any of his kind in my halls again!" Covifaht bellowed over him.

As gasps burst from the dozens of nobles gathered, Parlon angrily scanned the hall. Duronaht saw the angel's skin darken from its fair form to a sickly purple hue. Fast whispers escalated from the nobles, and Covifaht was undeterred. His rage had a momentum all its own.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" the Emperor asked, leaning forward like an animal feasting on its slain prey.

Duronaht waited until the last echoes of his father's booming voice had stopped bouncing along the crystal ceiling. He attempted, but failed, to avoid glancing at the amused expressions of the nobles. He greatly missed the feeling of adoration he could normally draw from them. Courtly affairs had previously been such an easy exercise for Duronaht. Finding his words proved difficult with so unfavorable an audience.

"Father, this is a matter that has been decided far too swiftly and cruelly by all involved. Passions are running high, yes. Mine are. Yours are. Even the passions of the angels themselves. I don’t think we all understand where this is taking us,” Duronaht said, attempting a calm tone so as not to irritate his father. Covifaht stewed regardless. “We’ve all had our frustrations, but to simply toss away the great gifts the angels give us when they live amongst us… We would have to be mad to do that. We’d have to be madder still to tear apart the empire over it.”

Covifaht sighed angrily and shook his head. Whispers carrying gossip again erupted from the court, which clearly bothered Parlon again. Duronaht knew that the angel could hear all that they said even in hushed voices. Whatever it was that they said must have angered Parlon as his skin continued to darken.

“What is madness, my son?” Covifaht said, pointing his scepter at Duronaht.

Such questions were ordinarily rhetorical, but after a painful silence Duronaht realized he was supposed to answer this time.

“I… I don’t understand,” Duronaht said.

“Madness is failing to understand the truth of the world even when it strikes you in the face. Madness is denying reality in the face of reason. Madness is thinking you can have beings so much more powerful than ourselves live among us and not live under their tyranny,” the Emperor pronounced in a soaring voice. Duronaht remained, as ever, envious of his father’s rhetorical prowess. He could feel that the court was enraptured by the Emperor’s performance. Indeed, were he not the object his father’s scorn, he would have enjoyed it. “Would we sell our dignity and our deepest freedoms for whatever trinkets the angels might shower upon us? No!”

Trinkets? Duronaht bristled at the word. Any remedy to Torhess’s rapidly declining health was no trinket to him. That his father knew her condition and would disregard it so flippantly could not have angered him more.

“This citadel itself wouldn’t stand if not for what Omonrel did for your father’s father. Our family owes its prestige and greatness to ‘trinkets’ from the angels and you would…” Duronaht’s rant was cut off by his father’s laughter.

“Please, my son, use a new argument. We’ve heard that one already,” Covifaht laughed and the court joined him. Duronaht fumed, but could summon no response. His mind went blank. The Emperor, plainly satisfied with his victory over his son, turned his focus to Parlon next. “And you, my Angelic Lord, what pleas do you bring?”

Parlon’s skin phased still further toward a sickly purple. An uneasy and disturbed aura radiated from him. I’ve never seen this before. What is this? What does he intend?

“Pleas? I have sat by politely in the halls of mortals for millennia and entertained foolishness without bound. Truly, you have no appreciation of the volumes of sheer idiocy that has flowed from the mouths of you and your forebears from the very moment of creation,” Parlon bellowed to a stunned hall. “Thus, the only plea I have for you is that I beg you all to be SILENT!”

All breath left those gathered. Duronaht, the emperor, and all of the various lords and ladies stood united in utter shock at the angel’s outburst. Attention slowly turned to Covifaht, whose face scowled and reddened, glistening in a sheen of wrathful sweat.

“Leave my halls! Neither I nor any of my lords want you here!” Covifaht shouted and pointed his scepter at Parlon.

After a moment of still silence, the angel cackled, turning his head skyward. His skin had phased completely to a dark purple and his hair began to flail wildly in all directions.

“But the minds of your lords are so fickle,” Parlon laughed as he flicked his wrist, sending a dull pulse from his hand. The room shook. At once, the gaggle of lords and ladies began rhythmically clapping. Their eyes rolled back fully into their heads, leaving only the whites of their eyes showing. “It is so easy to get them all to do what you want.”

The Emperor sat with his jaw agape at the sight, his ire surging. Deep within his head, Duronaht heard an indecipherable voice uttering an order both indistinct and commanding. It pushed out his other thoughts.

“Enough of this!” Covifaht leapt to his feet and pointed at Duronaht. “You and your friend are banished from my realm. I rescind your title as King of Zarmand! I renounce you as my son. If you’re fortunate, I’ll spare your life once I take Zarmand back from you!”

Shaking angrily, Duronaht looked to Parlon, who grinned mischievously. Duronaht felt his own hand drift down to his dagger at his hip. His fingers caressed the handle and began to pull it out of its scabbard, but then he stopped himself. It was unthinkable and yet it was all he could think of.

“No. I won’t,” Duronaht protested. “That’s madness!”

“You will lose everything you care for if you do not,” Parlon scolded, his head cocked.

“And what will I lose if I do?” Duronaht asked with a quivering, incredulous voice.

“Only a burden,” the angel replied.

Duronaht tried to resist the urge, but then a dull pulse hit him. His hand plunged down to the dagger and dragged it out of the scabbard. He felt himself shrink in his own mind, as though he were trapped behind his eyes, powerless to stop himself. With bounding steps, he surged up to the throne. Covifaht fell backward onto the throne, his mouth agape. Duronaht felt tears rolling down his eyes as he raised the dagger up in the air.

“What are you doing?!” Covifaht shouted, almost drowned out by the roaring applause from the entranced nobles.

Whooshing flames surged behind Duronaht. He turned to see a blaze of orange and red crackling fire engulfing the nobles. Robes and flesh burned away in an instant. Charred skeletons remained, clapping their dry bones against one another as if nothing had happened. The clanks of their bones rang in his ears. Parlon began to sing a frenzied and cacophonous piece as he hurled flaming shots up to the crystal ceiling, causing thousands of shards to come raining down. With piercing crashes, the crystal shattered all over the hall. A roiling surge tore apart the floor around the throne, reducing the heavy tile to dust.

Duronaht wanted to drop the dagger and crumple into a ball on the ground, but he couldn’t. The Emperor’s arms shot toward the dagger, trying to rip it away. Never in his life had he tried harder to do anything. He scratched at his own thoughts, attempting to vanquish the force that drove the dagger onward. He flailed at the dark and crazed commands crashing through his head, but they strengthened each second. With a power not his own, the dagger hand pushed away the emperor’s defenses and sailed through the air before plunging into the soft tissues of Covifaht’s left eye.

His father screamed, but Parlon’s wild and dissonant music surged over the agony. The dagger twisted and turned before pulling back to rip out the Emperor’s eye and flick it on the ground. Blood poured out of the deep socket down the wrinkles of his twisted and screaming face.

Again, the dagger surged into the air and plunged downward into the right eye. Again, Duronaht tried to stop it, but again he was a trapped observer, crushed under raw malice. Each twist of the blade sent a sickening rumbling through his body. He tried to imagine he was anywhere else, that this was only a nightmare and that he would open his eyes and see that it was an ordinary court reception. Even as the dagger cut across the Emperor’s throat and a spray of blood shot forward all over his hands, he fought in vain to escape this reality.

He stepped back amidst the crashing crystal and sundering stone to view the mangled corpse of Emperor Covifaht II, the eyeless and bloodied husk of what moments before had been the most powerful man in all of Vorlanys. He turned about toward Parlon to see the angel conjure a powerful gust of wind that turned the skeletons to heaps of ash before blowing them up through a massive jagged hole in the crystal ceiling.

“And now, my emperor, let us be done with this place,” Parlon said in a lyrical voice. The angel grasped Duronaht’s shoulder and shook him to gain his attention. “This ash heap will be a monument to foolishness.”

Staggered and without any bearings, Duronaht followed the angel out of the disintegrating chamber and out to a balcony on the tenth level where a great winged beast called a Delaq waited for them. Duronaht awkwardly sat upon its back. He looked out over the city where thousands of Methrangia’s citizens ran into the streets to gawk and shout at the sight atop Solnaht Citadel. Even far away, he could hear their frenzied cries of dread and anger.

Parlon took his seat on the Delaq’s back in front of Duronaht and guided it off the balcony to fly in rings around Solnaht Citadel as he hurled red and purple fiery bolts at various locations all over the keep. Each hit with devastating force, causing stone to rip apart and crumble deep into the citadel’s walls. Within moments, Solnaht Citadel had collapsed utterly into a pile of smoldering stone and shattered glass.

As he flew with Parlon back toward his armies in the east, he found himself incapable of even ruminating on all that had just transpired. He tried to pretend that it had not happened, but, when he glanced back toward Methrangia, a pillar of smoke and flame continued to spew from Solnaht Citadel’s ruins.

Father… I… I never… Why couldn’t you have… Duronaht’s thoughts raced, but could never complete, except for one that broke through the others. Now Torhess will be safe. That’s all that matters.