As the adage went, revenge was a dish best served cold.

But how to prepare that dish, how to punish those who had killed my former companion? It was a question Lenore and I had discussed at length, as it most certainly would have to be a magical solution. Sure, pure violence could be applied but even if Sigmir, Adra and Rai were incredibly powerful in their own right, their ability to direct violence was much more direct and focused. If you want to direct violence at a large area, or a large number of people, you needed magic and quite powerful magic at that.

But it wasn’t only thinking that we had done over the last few days, just as important that the thinking had been the scouting. We had travelled near Hatterion, setting up camp about half a day’s march away from the city, carefully hidden in the forest. From here, Adra and Rai had been heading out, looking for traces of the Rebels, while Lenore and I had done similar things, scrying and searching from the air.

Sadly, neither of us had been able to detect any direct evidence of their activities, the best leads we had found were a couple of game trails that showed signs of being used by humans in the past. But if those humans were rebels, simple poachers, bandits or something else entirely, we couldn’t tell from the traces left behind.

Ultimately, Lenore and I had decided that it didn’t matter. There most certainly would be rebels in town. While we couldn’t positively conclude that Olivia had been betrayed by her compatriots, we also couldn’t rule it out, leading us to decide on a similar, fate-based approach. If the rebels in the city were lucky enough to evade our vengeance, or simply not be there in the first place, it could be seen as a judgement from the Divine, allowing them to live.

If they were hit, well, then the Gods had judged them and they would be culpable. Either way, the havoc we would cause would most certainly implicate them, if only because the Empire would be in an utter uproar. To quell such uproar, an enemy was quite useful, an image that you could direct the public’s ire towards. And if such an enemy had years, maybe even decades or centuries of hatred directed at them, there was almost no low Humans wouldn’t stoop to, if directed by callous people.

“You made a decision, didn’t you, love?” Sigmir asked, as my mind returned to my body after Lenore and I finished yet another of our scrying attempts. There was a lot of information to be gathered before we could strike, so we had spent most of our time sitting on my throne, using shadowy ravens to observe the world.

“We did,” I nodded, letting out a sigh. There was much work to be done before we could turn the grand plan Lenore and I had hatched into a practical reality. Or rather, there were a lot of human resources to be acquired.

“We’ll need people,” I explained, “Quite a few of them, they don’t need to be willing, just alive and as unharmed as possible,” I added, a small part of my heart asking if Olivia would have wanted us to avenge her with such ruthlessness. But it was only a small part, the much louder part of my heart and mind wanted them to pay. They hadn’t even given Olivia’s trial the proper gravitas but turned it into a spectacle. If they wanted a spectacle, I would give them a spectacle they wouldn’t forget in their lifetime, as brief as that might be.

“That won’t be a problem,” she nodded, a vicious smile spreading across her face. If nothing else, she was looking forward to taking revenge a lot more than any of us, as only if death was avenged, could the soul move on into the next life. Given how Olivia had lived and how she had died, there was a lot of debt to be paid in her eyes. For her friends, she was willing to spill oceans of blood.

Convincing Adra and Rai of my plan was remarkably simple, even if that small voice somewhere in my heart grew louder, asking if I was acting for Olivia or if I was taking her death as justification for my own desires. Did I want to avenge her, or did I just want to see how far I would be able to push things? Had I been influenced by what I had seen Mal do, and was just yearning to test a few hypotheses of mine?

But did that even matter? One did not preclude the other, I could avenge Olivia, satisfy my own curiosity and, maybe, even gain an achievement worthy of great renown.

Driven by those thoughts, the four of us spent a few days preying on the locals. It was incredibly disheartening just how easy it was to capture them. Rai and Adra kept watch, making sure we were undetected, while I simply used magic to put the small groups we were targetting to sleep. No actual violence and the sheer difference in level meant the locals couldn’t even begin to resist, they simply fell like puppets with their strings cut, as soon as they got struck by my magic.

There was no fuss, no struggle, just a bunch of people who fell unconscious between steps, the worst wounds caused by their falls. A lot of scraped knees, a few broken bones, bleeding lips and knocked-out teeth, but nothing actually troublesome. That would come later.

Once they were out, Sigmir and I carried them into the trees and I pushed the magic deeper into their minds, letting them fall into a comatose state, unable to act, dream or even think. It was almost as if they were dead and I doubted they’d wake up without some major, magical interference. Of course, that also meant we were on a timer, as it would only take a few days before the people would simply start dying off and our collection would be pointless.

Luckily, it only took us two days of preying on travellers on a major trade route to capture the forty people we had aimed for and, to my amusement, one of the last groups we caught was even a group of guards, possibly send out here to investigate. If they were, the Empire was even more impressive than I thought, as I was reasonably certain that I had blocked all attempts to divine our location and actions and to obfuscate what was going on. If someone had managed to get a glimpse regardless, it was quite the achievement.

Once we had collected the necessary ingredients, during a clear, cold night, Lenore and I went to work, slowly drawing a huge ritual circle, hundreds of interlocking runes and their connecting patterns. For each of the bodies we had gathered, there was a small, magical formation prepared, three on the outside, feeding into the larger formation on the inside. On one side of that central circle was my throne, once again carved with dozens of runes. As always, it wasn't really a place to sit on, but a focus to allow me to channel immense amounts of power, more than I’d normally be able to.

The whole ritual was primarily designed for that, as my plan was incredibly simple, the use of magic I had used hundreds of times in the past. Just not on this scale.

Opposite my throne, on the other side of the central circle, was a small receptacle of Ice, ready to accept the corrupted Mooncrystal, the major component of the ritual. Without it, I doubted I would have the sheer power to pull off what Lenore and I had in mind.

“Adra, Rai, Sigmir, please be ready to protect us, just in case. If you are about to get overwhelmed, flee, Lenore and I will be able to catch up to you,” I told them, as I was getting ready to begin the ritual.

For a moment, Sigmir looked as if she would refuse and I had a feeling she might just say the words but ultimately refuse to retreat anyway. Loyalty and love were shining from her eyes, alongside sold trust.

“We will,” Adra nodded, looking at the many bodies surrounding my throne. She had seen me do quite a bit of ruthless magic, but nothing on this scale. And yet, there wasn’t a bit of worry in her eyes, merely calm, brutal acceptance. Our friend had been hurt and those who had done the deed had to pay for it.

“We’ll be fine, Teacher,” Rai promised, after tearing his eyes from the formation. He wasn’t a mage but he understood some magic and had a rough idea of just how much power I was about to evoke. And I had a feeling it scared him something fierce.

“Let’s do this,” I said to Lenore, as I carefully walked into the centre of the circle, a grin spreading across my face. Sitting on my throne, I closed my eyes, letting out a deep breath, before I began to channel my magic, letting it seep into the ritual, slowly infusing the hundreds of runes.

It was snowtime.