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undreds of fires turned the dark evening into a summer twilight. Myristal shone brightly in the night sky, rivaling in its brilliance with Irmaril. Among the trees and the gray, mended tents, one could hear fervent laughter, the quivering strings of cheap lutes, the beating of old, thinned-out drums, shouts, hums, clinking of metal, and the splashing of cheap booze.

The Seventh Legion was celebrating its last night under the same banner. Tomorrow, the general and the lieutenant would go to the capital for orders, and the soldiers, having received a good pension, would retire and finally return to normal life. The invincible army, of which only one thousand one hundred and thirty-seven men remained, although disbanded, would forever be remembered.

Ash, sitting by the fire with the rest of the officers, rubbed his chest. Something had been stirring there for a while, something he didn’t understand. A smile stretched his lips. Never before had he heard such genuine and merry laughter. In honor of their service, each prisoner was released, given one gold coin, and a skin of water. He didn’t understand why he had decided to do that, but everyone supported him, so he didn’t think about it twice.

“So, Vaha…” Racker nudged one of the officers, a tall, young man with a lot of scars on his face. A former thief, now the captain of a group of hundred. “What are your plans for the future?”

“Well,” the young man muttered, looking at the fire, “I was thinking of opening a tavern somewhere near the Seven Seas. Smugglers always need safe houses, so I thought…”

The officers burst out laughing. Vaha had always had a keen eye for business. He’d be able to sell sand to a nomad if he so wished.

“I thought about going north,” Ergbek joined the conversation, clutching his huge ax. “Nords will begin their campaigns soon. I’ll go to them as a mercenary. My guys are also thinking about it.”

“A band of mercenaries, huh?” Racker asked. He took a bite of his rabbit and washed it down with some booze.

“It’s an idea.” Ergbek nodded. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep a spot open for you, lieutenant. If you ever go north…”

“Nah! Too cold for me!” Racker laughed. “And I’ve heard that Northern women have thicker beards than their husbands and sons.”

“You’ve got it all wrong, lieutenant!” Raylan and his group of archers laughed. “You’re thinking of dwarves! The Northern women, ah… Waists as wide as your arm, skin as white as the first snow, cheeks red as the dawn, and―”

“―and hands so skilled in combat that they’d wipe the floor with you before you could even begin to court them!” sneered Skosi, the cavalry leader. He was a young lad, even younger than the general himself.

“So, what are your plans?” Vaha asked, narrowing his eyes.

Skosi hesitated to answer at first, but then he shrugged off his shyness.

“I’ll get married and raise horses.”

There was a moment of silence and then the crowd roared with laughter. It was both difficult and funny to imagine someone like him getting married. No woman in the thirteen kingdoms would marry such a thug and a marauder.

“And you, general?” Erbgek asked. “What are your plans?”

Ash looked up from the dancing flames. What did he want to do? He didn’t know. Ultimately, he’d do what the king told him to do. All he could do was hope that Garangan wouldn’t tell him to continue studying. By the Gods, he hated studying.

“I…”

“The general,” Racker interrupted, “will busy himself with exploring the deepest depths of magic, in order to one day steal the Archmage’s cap.”

Ash rolled his eyes and the officers laughed. By now, everyone probably knew how much he hated anything related to studying or training.

The fun continued until late at night, but after Myristal began to lean toward the west, there wasn’t a single person left in the camp that could stand on their feet without leaning against a tree or a friend.

Ash, hardened by drinking strong rum, looked suspiciously at the translucent liquid in his mug. In his opinion, the booze was far too watery and weak, so why he was so dizzy? Why did his eyelids feel like steel curtains and why was there a fog enveloping everything?

He tried to get up but instead fell face-first to the ground. The last thing he saw was Racker smirking, swinging an empty vial in his hand. Ash glanced at the empty barrels and instantly understood – they had been given a sleeping potion.

***

Ash awoke abruptly. His eyes shot wide open and his hand immediately reached for the staff, but found nothing except cold air. The king’s gift hadn’t been able to survive the siege of Zadastra, leaving its master defenseless.

“What the hell is this?” he croaked.

During his slumber, the forest had been turned into a nightmare, created by the imagination of a frightened boy huddled at the hem of his mother’s skirt. A bloody bacchanalia, an orgy of mad demons – those were just some of the comparisons that surfaced in his mind.

He was sitting in the midst of a forest fire, watching monsters battle one another. Half-human, half-wolf, they fought each other as if instead of reason they had only madness left. They gnawed at their opponents, falling under claws and fangs themselves. The grass was red with blood. Guts hung from the branches. The flames hissed, licking wounded heads and arms.

A terrible growl rang out.

Ash jumped to his feet, shivering like a leaf in the wind, and tried to tame the flames, but in vain. The element didn’t want to obey the weak mage, whose hands were shaking as if he was suffering from a deadly fever.

Another roar came, closer and louder than before. Ash raised his head and came face to face with a giant beast. Its muscles were visible even under the thick fur, and its fangs were the length of daggers. He didn’t dare look lower to see just how big its claws were. For the first time in his life, the young mage understood what fear was. The knowledge came suddenly, together with the sweat that wetted his back and vomit that clamped down on his throat.

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His heart skipped a beat as the beast snarled and charged, dashing across the blood-soaked ground. He was so confused and scared that he couldn’t even close his eyes to at least spare himself of looking death in the eyes. He stood and watched the black shadow rush toward him like a lead bullet fired from a musket. Another beat skipped, but he didn’t feel the blade-like claws ripping through his chest and stomach.

The monster landed behind him and began to tear at another creature. Ash turned around in disbelief. The fangs, the claws, the maddened eyes… The beast was no beast, but Ergbek.

Even more confused, Ash looked around the battlefield, realizing that it wasn’t werewolves that were fighting around him, but his men.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Someone chuckled behind him.

Ash immediately recognized the voice. He didn’t even need to turn around. A terrible pain shot through his chest and red droplets appeared on the grass. He fell to his knees, coughing as the blade tore through his lung.

A shadow loomed over him. Racker looked down at his general, feeling only disgust. He had once considered him a worthy leader, someone who didn’t suffer from foolish notions such as “honor” and “morals.” He had led the Legion into the craziest of battles, allowing them to fulfill their wildest fantasies, but all of that had changed.

He had begun to feel the general’s cold heart grow soft. He saved the foal, didn’t allow the captive children to be burned, forbade them to level Zadastra with the ground, and then he dismissed the Legion, giving them all a gold each! But all these were trifles in comparison to his biggest transgression.

A fire-wielding wizard could become a force to be reckoned with if they used the Dragon’s Essence. Ash could’ve surpassed the legendary First Master, he could’ve risen above the kings, outshone the epic heroes, could’ve been compared to the Gods themselves! But what did the fool do? He locked the Essence in a chest, determined to blindly follow the king’s orders to the letter!

If Ash was too much of a coward to defy the king, then he, Lieutenant Racker, would be more than happy to get that task off his hands.

Grimacing, he turned Ash’s body over with the toe of his boot. Blood was trickling from his chest. All he needed to do was pull out the dagger and let the mage choke on his own blood and vomit.

“I see you’re not surprised,” he commented, looking at the young man.

Ash was silent but there was something elusive in his eyes. He couldn’t tell which hurt more – the steel in his chest, or the metaphorical knife in his back. He realized that he couldn’t escape death and made peace with the fact that his days were numbered. He had served the king faithfully, following orders to the very end, as he had been taught by his mentors. He had followed all the principles of the religion of the thirteen kingdoms that the high priest had hammed into his head. As per the king’s orders, he had led his men into terrible battles. He knew by heart all the Words that Arthur had explained to him.

As the steel sunk deeper into his chest, Ash began to understand things that he hadn’t realized before. He was suddenly aware of the fact that his entire life had been led and dictated by other people. He finally realized the meaning of the word “to want” – he wanted to live, to live as he pleased!

A ball of fire shot up into the air. Racker, roaring like a wounded beast, tried to put out the flame that had caught his hair and beard. When he finally managed to subdue it, Ash was gone. All Racker saw was a shadow fading away among the burning trees.

“Run as much as you want!” He laughed, clutching the Essence in his hand. Around him, the Legion was dying, not realizing that it was killing itself. The stars continued to twinkle, seemingly indifferent to the chaos happening below them. “Run all you want, but you’re still dead!”

By morning, the king would have learned about Ash’s betrayal. He’d then order that the mage be stripped of all regalia and awards, and that all land and coin be taken away from him. Any mention of the young man would be erased from the scrolls and chronicles. Oblivion will take not only the name of the man he had trusted as his own brother and son, but also all of those who had gone with him. The Seventh Legion will be remembered not for its deeds, but for its transgressions.

Posters would be displayed all over the continent, offering a reward of five thousand gold pieces to whoever brought the head of the murdered whose name could no longer be spoken.

But none of that would happen until the next morning. Until then, the stars would continue to twinkle above the forest of Mons.

***

Ash staggered through the trees, pressing his hand to the wound. He knew that if he pulled out the dagger, life would begin to pour out of him faster than sand from a broken hourglass. Running, he’d sometimes stumble over roots. Tearing his hands on the bark, he kept his weak body on its feet by leaning against trees. He was aware that he wouldn’t get up if he fell. Unfortunately, sometimes, no matter how much one tried, you couldn’t go against the will of the Gods.

Making his way through a bush, Ash realized too late that there was a cliff ahead. He managed to grab onto a branch but only experienced even greater pain when a long, deep cut reddened his palm. He fell, sliding down the slope. With each blow, the dagger sunk deeper into his wound. The agony became so intense that he began to taste metal as blood filled his mouth – he had bitten off the tip of his tongue. After that came a blow that knocked the air out of one lung and filled the other with blood. And then everything calmed down. The sky no longer played tag with the earth and the stars no longer flickered like torches.

Ash lay in a ditch, feeling the grass under his back become wet with blood. Luckily, he didn’t break anything during the fall.

“You’re here,” a gurgling rasp came out of his throat along with blood.

A shadow flickered in the crown of one of the trees looming above and another figure appeared in the ditch. The stranger was a short man, dressed in blue robes and sandals made of wood and hemp rope, but his power was almost palpable. Even the wooden rosary clutched tightly between his thick fingers couldn’t detract from this.

Without knowing why, Ash smiled wryly at the shaven head of the strange man, whose eyes were more like narrow slits and skin the color of amber.

“How did you notice me?” the man asked in a high-pitched, somewhat squeaky voice.

“More like… when,” the young man wheezed, staring into the dark, almost black eyes. “I noticed you… in the shadows… a couple of months ago… You’ve… been following us…”

The man shook his head.

“You. I’ve been following you,” he explained.

Ash fell silent. Spitting blood, he repeated one of Racker’s favorite jokes.

“Sorry, you’re not… my type.”

The man just stared at him.

“You know,” he said, somehow strangely, “I was ordered to kill you. I descended from the mountain, left my brothers and the monastery, traveled through the wildest and most terrible lands, hoping to meet a worthy opponent… I thought that there must’ve been a reason that I went through the trials written in my scroll of destiny by Liao-Feng himself. But what do I see? A brat that hasn’t even lived his twentieth winter.”

“You know,” Ash smirked, surprising himself, “I’m kinda dying here… You better hurry up with… your speeches…”

“I should’ve killed you immediately.” The stranger sighed. “But I changed my mind. I waited and I watched, as the heavenly sage’s commandment dictated. I longed to see the darkness in your heart, but instead I saw nothingness. I should’ve killed you, but I kept watching.”

“You really… like talking,” Ash wheezed, feeling his legs going cold. “Just like… my teachers…”

“Well, I was awarded for my patience,” the man continued, ignoring Ash’s dying comments. “I’ve watched you bloom like a flower. I saw how you saved the foal, how you put the comb in the girl’s hand, how you fed the children, and how you freed the prisoners. At that moment, I realized that I had no right to judge someone who hasn’t been born yet. That’s why, by the wisdom of Liao-Feng, I grant you a possibility of rebirth. Or, if you’d like, a quick death.”

The stranger leaned down, placing a sinewy hand on the young man’s chest. He uttered something Ash didn’t understand and stared into his eyes.

“If you don’t feel pain, I’ll kill you. If you survive what’s to follow, you just may be able to live. Prepare.”

A soft, white light enveloped his palm.

“The Art of Mok-Pu: Resonance!”