Chapter 7

The Mage Tower, Heart of the Empire

The tower room was silent, save for the wind scratching faintly at the leaded panes. Moonlight slanted through the high skylight, carving silver arcs across the black marble floor. At the room's center, an ancient scrying basin rested atop a pedestal of glass-veined obsidian runes crawling across its rim like restless insects.

Zachrius stood over it, his hand trembling as he poured a thin stream of arcane essence into the basin. The water shimmered, turned to fog, and then to shadow. For a heartbeat, something stirred then vanished. Empty. Again.

His breath caught.

Why can't I see him?

A seventh-tier battlemage. Archmage of the Magus Empire. Slayer of spirits. Wielder of a staff grown from Yggdrasil's last living branch. Yet for all his power, he could not find a boy. Could not find his only son. The only piece of Alice that was left. No matter what he tried the result was always the same nothing.

Not by spell. Not by sight. Not even by dream.

He pressed both palms against the basin. The runes resisted then yielded.

"Show me again," he whispered. "Please."

This time a shape surfaced. A small figure walking through fog. Then gone.

Mana cracked and hissed as it rejected him outright. The water turned to smoke, then nothing.

Zachrius staggered back. His right hand spasmed with the familiar pain of old mana-burn, but the pain that twisted in his chest was sharper. The guilt had started small but over the years had grown to a constant ache in his chest. The pain of losing his wife and child was a constant. He had failed his duties as a husband and father and for what. A empire constantly filled with inner conflict.

He turned toward the arched window, toward a single high-backed chair draped in white. He had never moved it. Never touched the shawl she left there from the last time she had sat there. The day she came to him, frightened for the future but still radiant her belly just beginning to show.

The council had begun whispering. The prophecy had begun to spread. And Zachrius trusted Archmage and friend of the Pope, had hesitated.

Not because he didn't love her.

But because he couldn't imagine disobedience.

"I chose them over you," he said softly to no one. "I chose order. Doctrine. Safety. And they still hunted you. They still called you traitor. They still questioned me as if i was guilty of helping you as i should of done."

He let his hand rest on the chair's back.

"I should have run with you. I should have burned the Empire to the ground if necessary. I should of broke the chains of fate that chose to wrap its cursed self around our boy."

He closed his eyes.

He should have grown up here. In this tower. In the sun. Not in a city of bones.

Morte.

His son. Not a weapon. Not a threat.

Just a boy.

"I'm trying to fix my wrongs Alice, I'm doing everything I can to keep him from being put in the middle of this war. I hope you can rest easy knowing that." Zachrius whispered to himself. Deep down he knew that she wasn't resting easy because she had used her soul as a bargaining chip for their son's safety. The safety he was too much of a coward he was to provide himself.

He sank into the second chair beside hers. The silence pressed in, suffocating.

After some time, he opened a drawer from the able between the chairs and removed a velvet-wrapped bundle thin, old, untouched. Inside, a child's amulet rested on a silver chain. A charm of warding, set with a single amethyst.

Her parting gift.

He closed his hand around it, and it warmed faintly in his palm.

He placed it on the rim of the basin and whispered an old prayer—not Avalonian, not imperial. Alice's childhood rite, from a time forgotten.

"May the eyes of the dead watch kindly over the living.

May the unloved find light.

May the forsaken be remembered."

The amulet lay still.

No answer came.

But still—Zachrius remained.

Watching.

Waiting.

A father, mourning a son not yet dead.

The Arcane Tribunal

Five years had passed since the fall of Sir Valien beneath Necrovia's shadow and the Empire had not forgotten.

Avalon had buried its martyr beneath salt-lined marble, sanctified and sealed. But time had not dulled their outrage. If anything, it had sharpened it. Their sword Mercy was corrupted. Their pride wounded.

They called it desecration.

They called it war.

Now, beneath the star-forged dome of the Mage Tower's upper halls, the Arcane Tribunal convened. Seven seats for three kingdoms two from each realm, one for the Archmage.

Six sat already. The seventh centered was occupied by Zachrius, robed in black and silver. His expression was calm. His eyes were not.

At the table's edge, Cardinal Adonael of the Holy Kingdom tapped armored fingers on stone. Each click echoed like a countdown.

"Necrovia grows bolder," he said, voice smooth as marble. "They test our borders. That thing the Death Knight slaughtered Valien and twisted the sacred blade."

His voice rose.

"The paladins cry for justice. The people, for retribution. And still Magus remains silent."

Beside him, High Commander Vaelric of Avalon folded his arms.

"We are warriors, not watchers."

Across the table, Mistress Arkana of Magus adjusted her spectacles.

"We are a council, not a crusade. Lest you forget, the paladins acted without consensus."

Adonael's lip curled.

"We did what you were too hesitant to do. We sought truth and found it. You read the survivor's report."

He turned to Zachrius, voice hardening to steel.

"You saw it. A Death Knight. Weve received word that even the blade was corrupted. Theres also been whispers of a child cloaked in shadow, wielding unnatural mana. The signs are unmistakable."

He leaned forward.

"The prophecy breathes, Archmage. And it bears your name."

A hush fell.

Zachrius met his gaze, slowly. "You speak of Morte."

Even the scribe's pens stilled.

Adonael did not blink. "We speak of your son. Born of a seer. Hidden from divine gaze. Raised in the arms of our enemy."

Zachrius's voice dropped.

"You forget the role this council played in his exile. Who turned away his mother. Who traded mercy for fear."

Vaelric frowned. "She fled before we cast a vote."

Zachrius's eyes hardened.

"And if she hadn't? Would you have protected them?"

Neither answered.

Adonael folded his hands. "The child survives. And thrives. He may already wield third or fourth-tier magic."

Zachrius's tone was ice. "He is ten."

Adonael's voice sharpened.

"And what were you capable of at ten?"

Silence again.

Zachrius's hand closed under the table, knuckles white.

"He is also my only son."

A pause.

Even Arkana turned.

Adonael didn't blink. "Then prove your loyalty. Call him back. Or end him before the darkness claims him in your stead."

Zachrius rose.

The air thinned.

"I serve the Empire," he said. "But I will not serve its fear."

His gaze swept across the table.

"My son's life is not a coin to be traded. And if you force my hand…"

A breath. A silence heavier than any threat.

"…you risk more than you know."

He turned and left.

Behind him, debate resumed quiet, vicious, and full of splinters.

Above them, the tower groaned not from siege or spell.

But from the slow, silent cracking of loyalties once thought unbreakable.

The Mirror of Thorns

Far beneath the Mage Tower, behind a dozen arcane seals and forgotten glyphs, lay a room no other councilor knew.

Only Zachrius remembered the phrase Alice had whispered the night she showed him the mirror:

"It doesn't show what is. It shows what you fear to lose."

The Mirror of Thorns stood at the chamber's heart; its frame wound with obsidian roots like petrified vines. The glass glowed faintly violet, veiled in twilight. It did not reflect until called. It had taken a ridiculous amount of resources to bring it back to working condition. Alice had done something to it when she left what she did he still didn't know.

Zachrius stepped forward and pressed his fingers to the thorny edge.

"Show me the child," he whispered. "Show me… my son."

The mirror resisted. Then trembled.

Ash and shadow rippled across the surface—then parted.

A boy appeared, standing on a stone terrace high above a city of bone-white towers and obsidian stone spires. Ten years old. White hair with streaks of violet. Pale skin like moonlight.

But the eyes

Pale violet.

Alice's eyes.

Zachrius exhaled. Something inside him cracked.

Beside the boy stood a strange creature—shifting, genderless, flickering like molten glass and smoke. It mirrored Morte's stance. Curious. Obedient.

Zachrius leaned closer. The boy looked outward, toward something unseen, with neither joy nor hatred.

Only a quiet, aching resolve.

He knows he doesn't belong.

"What are they turning you into?" Zachrius murmured.

He unknowingly reached forward towards Morte.

The mirror burned his fingertips. Not cruelly. Just enough to remind him:

You are not welcome.

The image shifted.

The Lich King now sat upon a throne of bone and flame. Morte knelt before him. The construct followed suit, awkwardly.

Zachrius's jaw tightened.

Then again, the mirror changed greater undead bowing as the boy passed. Some looked on with reverence. Others turned away.

Whispers.

Fear.

They knew what he was.

And some were starting to fear him for it.

Zachrius did not look away.

He couldn't.

Not yet.