The wagon they sat on clattered over the uneven cobblestoned road. The path grew wider as they drew farther away from the Midden's rotten core; less uncertain turns into darker muffled corners to more open sun-doused streets, stench still lingering to the district's borders. Shops were closed save for the stalls outside, windows barricaded, a loose crowd milling about their business with a panicked step.

Thael buried his urge to pull and fidget from his itching servant’s uniform buttoned up to stifle his neck, light grey to blend with the stone structures that stood past the Midden. Pointed tiled roofs and spires marked their dominance to the now seeming frail crammed wooden shanties reaching over one another, only to still fall below the stoneworks above.

Six Cadres of soldiers, thirty in total, armed with pikes and sheathed swords blocked their path behind staked barricades, dulled grey armor under the white heraldry of Dres Lanieth, tattered sigils of a black spiking sun emblazoned onto their now yellowed tabards.

Shen sat at the forefront of the wagon, the driver beside lifting the horses’ reins to a clopping stop.

Their captain held up a hand, eyes squinting at Thael and the others.

“Well, I’ll be,” he remarked, all braggish and braggart beneath his curling waxed brown mustache. “A dwarf servant? With the Hross Clan then. Serves you squatlings right to side with the Monarchy.” Shercagh's eyes glazed over the man’s gaze. The captain leered at Verena and pointed to her, “All of you. Get down from there. You first.”

Verena stepped down from the wagon, the captain extending one helping hand out with a lecherous grin. Thael and the others clambered down, the other soldiers patting their bodies or checking the chests of produce heaped atop the wagon.

“Follow me for inspection,” the man told Verena, still holding her hand.

Shen waved out his hands, “She is meant for someone else, sir.” He lowered his voice. “It’s best you not offend the Minister’s sensibilities, he prefers them… untouched.”

The captain scowled, “This whore? She’s as pure as a half breed.”

“The Minister would be most... displeased, sir."

The soldier murmured, half dragging Verena along, "There are other ways to make sure her virtue remains clean."

Verena pulled herself back, surprising the man with her sudden strength. Her voice trembled in seeming fear, "I am meant for the Minister, and him alone. Should you try and take me, I will fight you with all I have. When he sees me beaten I shall tell him who did this to me, and it shall be you." She drew a shaking breath, jutting her chin up. "What is your name, good sir?"

"Conniving bitch, aren't you?" snarled the captain, falling back as the other soldiers watched with callous interest. "I know the Minister will relish in your struggling." He waved off a hand, “Away with you. I’ll be waiting for your return.”

When the wagon turned a corner, the blockade disappearing from view did Shen murmur, “That was well done.”

Verena sat across Thael in the wagon, face hardened within the confines of her cowl; she said with a seething calmness, “How far off is the inn?”

Shen spoke in clipped Haolo to the driver before answering, “The inn is close to the Hold. It will take no more than an hour.”

The roads winded and meandered, always at an upward slope, sullen grey stoned houses laced with rich green ivy creeping into its mortared walls. The main street spiralled up to the Hold, teethed ramparts bridged with stout turrets encircling the High Tower, a narrow shaft of stone that ruptured skyward to watch over all of Dres Lanieth.

“You could have sent another man to aid us, Shen,” Verena said. “Why join this mission?”

“My father believes in opportunity as- how do you say in your language- hot iron. You must strike it hard and fast before it cools, so that you will shape it in how you wish. For your intended shape you must be the one wielding the hammer. My father believes in shaping such events with his own hands, or as close as he can.”

“Are you the wielder then, or simply the hammer?” Verena questioned.

“I follow my father. In a way, he is like you,” Shen turned his head sidelong to them. “Doing what he must to shape such events with his own hands. We will do what we must for our own ends, but it all leads to rescuing your Prince.”

***

Arrin stared at the plate on the table before him. Not the royal chef’s elaborate pieces of Arcadian fine cuisine, but a simple dish that withstood the trends of what was deemed fanciful: a deep bowl of meat stew in a medley of diced vegetables. Its savory aroma sifted through his nose, his stomach grumbling in reply.

“You should listen to your body,” the man said, sitting across Arrin. His shrewd cerulean eyes were different in color from his father’s, yet held the same harsh coldness as his, even colder with their chilling blue. Eyes that viewed Arrin as an object, a thing needed for one’s own ends. What end that was, Arrin did not know; but he knew that it was not one of his own making.

Locks of brown silvered hair splayed over the man’s forehead. His face was creased and hollowed, a straight bridged nose of highborn origin to be sure, wide set pursed lips over a strong cut chin. The man wore a stark white collared uniform, gleaming gold epaulets adorned each shoulder.

Arrin was sitting beside a squared table in a squared stone room. A hearth blazed bright, two men standing beside the door, hoods steeped in unnatural shadow even when facing the fire’s glow. The man sitting across him was the only face he saw, revealing nothing as the stone around them.

“Why did you take me?” Arrin asked. “You’re a Minister. Do you not serve the Arch King?”

The man hinted a smirk. “No man serves any man.”

“What of the men that serve you here?”

“Not them. Especially not them. They tell me you refuse to eat.”

“I won’t.”

“I can force you to eat,” the man said, composed, controlled. “It would not be comfortable. I would prefer you eat freely.”

Arrin looked down at the dark carpet that covered the stonework. He took the wooden spoon and dipped it into the stew. Pangs of hunger spreading from his gut urged for another spoonful.

When Arrin finished his meal, the man gave a closed smile, “Better.” He raised one gloved hand, white as his uniform, pristine, absent of any grime nor wear. “Before you ask me another question I will ask you one after, and you must answer, or I will not answer your own questions. Do you understand?”

Arrin nodded, “Who are you?”

“I am Ambrose Edenborrough, a Minister of Dres Lanieth.”

“You’re a rebel. Why would you break the Accord?”

“You haven’t answered my question yet, Prince Arrin.”

Arrin shook his head. “My name is Edgard. I’m just a Baron’s son from Midvale. Why did you take me?”

“You have a quick wit, Arrin. I appreciate that. What I do not appreciate is being lied to.” Ambrose folded his gloved hands together over the table. “I will be forced to show you the consequence of lying to me should you lie again. Do you understand?”

Arrin did nothing but nod.

Ambrose passed another closed smile. “Better. How well do you know your father, Arrin?” He raised one finger skyward. “Think well before you answer, and know that I will be displeased should I find your answer insufficient.”

Arrin paused. A moment passed, another. “My Lord, I don’t understan-”

Ambrose lashed out a backhanded slap that knocked Arrin off his chair, head smacking against the hard unfeeling stone. Arrin blinked, his vision hazed, his lip welted and numb. He had bitten part of his tongue, the rich tang of blood welling within his mouth, like salted butter laced with melted iron. Arrin did not get up, blood beading from his mouth to disappear into the black carpet. He heard Ambrose sigh even through his ringing ears.

“Sometimes all of one’s wit cannot replace an absent measure of wisdom. Do get up Arrin, or I will be further displeased.”

Arrin propped himself onto the chair, smearing his bleeding mouth with the back of one fist. Ambrose offered a white handkerchief with his other gloved hand not spattered in red.

“Please, clean yourself.”

Arrin pressed the handkerchief to his lip, wincing at the throbbing pain.

“Do you see how small your world suddenly becomes,” Ambrose continued. “When one places their power onto you? A horrid thing, but no less natural than a predator hunting its prey. Would that make a powerless person another man’s quarry then?” Ambrose stood up and walked over to the hearth, pulling off his bloodied glove to flick into the fire. “What is a man to a Mage, Arrin? On the outside, they seem of the same flesh, the same nature. Yet they are granted power great enough to level empires. Perhaps the gods on a fickle whim decided to cavort with us as the Codex states, and we are to revere your line as those deities’ descendants. I shall tell you a different story.”

Ambrose returned to his chair, eyes brimming in the firelight, and began his tale.

***

There was a boy the same age as you, but not of the same nature, for he was a mortal. A mortal boy who wanted nothing else but to become an immortal, a Mage. He joined the Faith in the hope of finding such knowledge. He pored through countless tomes to no avail, until he noticed one thing: that the Sacred Texts held no knowledge of the Mythic, the ones before us.

There was a hidden secret, shunned and so jealously guarded, and the boy grew dogged to know it.

One night, he broke into the Royal Librarium and came across no dusty tome but Mythic artifacts, countless talismans of a lost age hoarded and hidden away from understanding. Our texts even after all this time had remained the same as theirs. The boy read and saw that the Mythic had not been born into this world, but had come from another, aboard ships with oars of flame and sails of metal, across an endless black sea. The boy questioned why the Faith would withhold such knowledge. He realized that the Faith was just one lesser sect of the Circle, a mere puppet controlled by the Monarchy itself. For the Monarchy was not in fact descended from Gods as such hubris would suggest, but from the Mythic. All of us, once united, now scattered throughout this world, Orr.

He gave up his Robes and Rites to travel the Realms in search of the Mythic, their ruins and artifacts lost even in history. He knew there were more secrets, more revelations to unearth. In time the boy became a man, and he returned to his home after scouring the world for its secrets.

Struggles for power were now simply tools to be wielded. He knew now that knowledge had twisted to superstition and mystery that powered the cycle of suffering for those weaker, those ignorant of their own existence. And at the center of it all was the Monarchy, drowned in its own deception for so long they now believed in it all as well.

The man knew that the people had succumbed to such lies, dripped by the Faith for ages past. So he would use their own scriptures as his weapon, embodied by a greater cause, to rise against oppression, against the subjugation of the Monarchy. And so people rallied under his ideal, under the banner of the Black Sun. The hope that they too would wield the power that keeps them imprisoned.

***

Ambrose murmured, “I do not despise you as a person Arrin, I but despise your being. Being into the Monarchy, into the rule which perpetuates this cycle of blind suffering for all.” He smiled. “We have been made slaves to our own selves, and you shall be the catalyst that will release us from our prison.”