Grovalt didn’t know how, but he was happy. The snowfields of Frostmaw nearly brought a tear to his eye. If tears could form, that is. The temperature didn’t take too kindly to liquids being liquids for too long. Any exposed moisture to the frosty wind up north, especially here near the Winter Mansion, would solidify in almost an instant. Even then, it was home to him. The blistering cold now was just the same as it was when he was a wee lad, and it reminded him of good times. And bad times.

“** **** *** ******** ** ********,” Inara said suddenly. She would often surprise him like that. Her skin was so pale, even paler than his, that she often blended into the wintery air.

“Whew, you scared me. I almost thought you were some kinda frost wit-”

“**? ****** **** ********.”

“Oh, nothing.” It was a test. If he did finish the sentence, she’d kill him. “And yeah, well… being a mercenary and working in some foreign land is one thing. Being able to work in your homeland is another. It’s just…”

“****?”

Grovalt trailed off and mumbled to himself. His eyes glazed over as he scratched his patchy beard. Flecks of snow had caught onto it, dangling for dear life. “Hmm… sorry. For some reason, I had a feeling like I’m forgetting something. Something about… a tower?”

Inara paused and pinched her chin in an inquisitive fashion. “*** *******?”

“The Citadel… no I don’t think so. Something much taller than that. Ah, whatever.” Grovalt waved his hand near his head as if to physically push the thought from his mind. “What was I saying? Right, about the job. Why do you need protecting in the first place? No one ever comes up north. Not even Reville airships. All we’ve got is our brawn.”

Even as the words left his mouth, and as Inara gave him a small lecture there in the freezing cold, he knew it wasn’t so simple. Maybe he had wanted her to tell him herself. Maybe he had just wanted to hear her talk. Either way, the truth was self-evident. Following the Relic War, nations directed their eyes to precious materials hidden in the far corners of the continent. Black steel was one of the hardest metals one could find, and it just so happened that it was the one thing Frostmaw was abundant in. One could attribute such a quantity of rare metals to the battles that were waged there in legend eons ago. Tales as old as humanity itself, describing the bitter end of the kel-anisai and the dragonlords.

Though Inara often held a cold demeanor when addressing those related to royalty such as herself, her angelic smile always shone through when talking about such things. Perhaps it was because she was talking to Grovalt about such things, but he had to stifle thoughts like that. It was unbecoming of a bodyguard to have feelings for their hirer.

Though, he wondered what had cultivated such a feeling in the first place. Thinking back to the day he had returned home, he recalled a very different mood. The war was over and done with and he was back home after a long journey, but his mind was elsewhere. The desert sands had left their mark on his boots. The blood of northerners and Sirithisians alike had stained his hands. The horrible, catastrophic magic they had resorted to replayed over and over in his head. He needed fresh air and an escape.

So, he left his lodging and roamed the wastes as he had many times as a child. The lashing wind, though painful to others, was a refreshing breeze to him. It filled his lungs and cleared his mind. The seemingly endless rolling snow brought him a sense of relief. This hilly snowscape was nothing like the burning dunes he had fought in. Sure, perhaps the treacherousness and the infinity of it all was similar, but it was still akin to comparing heaven and hell. One was home, and the other a godless, horrifying place.

“*****,” a muffled voice came from behind Grovalt, startling him.

He spun around and gazed upon a woman clad in swirls of icy blue, powdery white, and windswept fur. “Whew, you scared me. What’d you say, miss…?”

“Inara. Princess Inara of the Icespire Citadel.” She gave him a graceful curtsy. “I only greeted you. It isn’t often I find someone this far out. And if I do, it’s usually Rethganland and his band of smelly hunters…” She pursed her lips and her eyes darted towards Grovalt as if he had accused her of something. After a while, she coughed awkwardly and folded her arms. “I apologize. As a lady and royalty, I’ve failed you. I insulted my subjects for no good reason and without even asking your name first.” Though she meant what she said, the words left her mouth as if she had rehearsed them ad infinitum.

Grovalt hadn’t come into contact with much royalty, so he decided after a short deliberation that he would talk to her just as he talked to everyone. “Ah, no problem really. You’re not wrong, either. Those guys live and breathe fish guts.” He gave her a half-smile and chuckled lightly. “Grovalt’s my name. Sorry. I’ve never met any aristocrats or anything, so…”

Inara’s half-pouting, half-pursed face relaxed as she heard Grovalt’s words. “I see. Thank you.”

“No problem. But, I am curious about something.”

“And what is that?”

“Why is a royal this far out in the wastes? Kinda asking to get mauled by a vax or some other creature.” Grovalt looked at her with an upturned eyebrow. He hoped she wasn’t trying to do anything she would regret.

Inara gave a short chuckle and removed a silky glove from her left hand. “I can handle myself.”

Grovalt’s eyes widened as a chime rang out from the young girl’s arm. A jagged rune of some kind had appeared on her palm, its form emblazoned in a glowing teal hue. Swirls of frosty air coalesced around her hand, and a short spear of ice came into being with a flash of white light. She grasped the spear tightly with her bare skin, unfazed by the freezing rime.

“That is impressive. No merc like me could ever hope to learn something like that.”

Inara pulled her glove back over her hand, the glowing sigil fading in the harsh wind. She bent over slightly and peered into Grovalt’s tired eyes. “I could teach you.”

He laughed. “I think you’d be better off doing anything else. Especially not wandering the wastes. No amount of magic will save you if you’re outnumbered, you know.”

“Then be my bodyguard. In return, I’ll teach you everything I know about ice magic. I can pay you, too.”

Grovalt couldn’t believe the situation he had found himself in. An hour ago, he had been barely scraping by, piggybacking off jobs Darriel and the others had gotten. Now, he had the opportunity to guard a royal. A princess, in fact. It was too surreal. “I don’t know… there are a lot of options out there. And much better fighters. Smarter, too. Honestly, I’m not sure I could ever learn magic either.” Grovalt looked to the side abashedly. “I was a terrible student, y’know.”

Inara stared at him resolutely. A cold aura had grasped her, or perhaps it had grasped Grovalt. From her eyes and look alone, he knew he could never argue with her and come out on top. His fate was sealed.

“Alright. I’ll do it.”

With a warm handshake in a land that was deathly cold, a pact formed between a pathless mercenary and a wandering royal.

But that was the past. A memory within a memory. As his consciousness returned to him, Grovalt had a gut feeling to scream. It wasn’t out of pain, he couldn’t feel it of course. It was the same feeling he had had while working for Graves. Every night, he would yearn for his bed, exhausted. Except, every time he did slip into the tranquil hold of sleep, he secretly wished that he would die peacefully there. He had hoped that the morning would never come, and that he would finally be allowed to rest. Truly rest. With every morning that relentlessly came, he wished dearly to scream at the top of his lungs. Living in such a bleak future, without her, was a fool’s errand. At least, that was how he had thought before.

His eyelids, coated in dirt and grime, wrenched open. All manner of debris and shattered remnants of black steel architecture lay at his side, like an onyx coffin. Though the pieces were parts of the Imperium, he quickly realized he was no longer there. From his limited senses, he could gather he was still in Aza. The plaza, to be more exact. Unfortunately, his hearing was long gone. The cause of it was the screaming creature that sat in the middle of his vision. A blonde girl.

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“GROVEY!!!? GROOOOOVAAAAALT!!! YOU’RE ALIVE!!! YOU’RE STILL ALIVE!!!” Lumi gripped Grovalt’s arm with one hand, and gave Rook a crushing hug of celebration with the other. Both men feared for their lives. “I TOLD YOU, ROOK!!! DUMMY!!! I KNEW HE’D LIVE!!! HAHAHAHA!!!”

“Lumi. Lumi. Lumi!” At the sound of Rook yelling, something she had only heard him do a handful of times, she went silent as a stone. “We need to let him rest. Zenzi said so.”

Grovalt shook his head and took a long, deep breath. “I’ve rested long enough. Just tell me what happened.”

“Well…” Lumi started. “That tentacled creep had you in some weird daze. And Miss Maxra was busy fighting that other anisai woman. Us and Darriel were fighting those annoying mages. When the others ran upstairs, we didn’t know what to think, so we just kept on fighting. All of a sudden, there was this huge crash… almost as if lightning had struck the tower.”

Rook helped Grovalt to his feet and gave Lumi an affirmative nod, then turned to his pale ally. “Long story short, the top of the Imperium collapsed on us. Zenzi barely managed to cast a teleportation spell and move us here. But the others are nowhere to be found.”

Finally able to observe his surroundings to a greater degree, Grovalt confirmed they were in the same plaza that Eloise had conducted her massacre. Piles of bodies littered the square, cocooned in dry blood. Each was adorned with identical armor, that of imperial plating. Their shining gems, if they were not painted a dark red, glimmered in the late afternoon sunlight pouring down from the heavens.

Looking up revealed the truth of Rook and Lumi’s words. Despite its supposed invincibility, the Imperium’s uppermost floors and precipice were completely destroyed. Scarlet flame rose from its wound like a roaring bonfire atop a mountain.

“I’m sure they’re fine. Ceres and Nakir. Fatalinya. Everyone.” Lumi patted Grovalt on the back. Her hand, though small, felt much larger with her strength put into it. If Grovalt could still feel, it may have even hurt. Even still, he silently appreciated the reassurance from the beaming girl. “Either way, this is proof it wasn’t for nothing. I’m sure the Azanites seeing this right now are feeling just a little more hopeful, at least.”

The right side of Grovalt’s mouth curved upwards into a happy grin. “You’re right. Hopefully it can even put Fatalinya’s mind to rest. The Resistance’s efforts weren’t in vain after all.”

“Hold on. What is that?” Grovalt and Lumi glanced over to see Rook standing as stiff as a board, pointing to something across the city.

“What do you-” Grovalt began to reply, but the words left his mind upon witnessing the source of Rook’s question. A searing light tore through the streets, bellowing flame following in its wake. It was a humanoid form wreathed in fire, though half of it resembled a bird. In its hands, or what Grovalt assumed to be its hands, was a ferocious battle axe. The weapon could have only been made by some scornful, chaotic god. The parts of it that weren’t wrapped in flame were black as coal, and upon its blade were etchmarks written in burning crimson.

Rook took a few steps backward, having thought of the answer himself. “...Another wrathcursed. They must have let loose another one… or it escaped somehow. Maybe that’s what blew the tower up…?”

He peered up at Grovalt, but Grovalt didn’t say a word. His mouth was slightly agape, but not out of confusion. It was as if he had come to some kind of grim understanding. The life in his eyes darkened.

“Grovey? You alright? You’re not in a daze again, are ya?” Lumi shook Grovalt’s arm.

“That thing… it’s holding Graves’s axe. No one could wield it but him.”

“Graves? You mean your old boss? The one you fought before meeting the Ravens?”

Grovalt nodded solemnly.

“So… that’s him then. What could turn him into something like that?”

Rook unsheathed his black, rectangular blade. “He’s wrathcursed, no doubt about that. And you only said he was injured before they took him… then they must be forcefully triggering breakdowns.”

“What!?” Lumi roared, gripping her hammer with a ton of force. “They can’t just use people’s emotions like that as weapons!”

Rook peered deeper at the incarnation of fire rampaging throughout Aza. The sheer sight of it burned his pupils. “They’ve already made it perfectly clear that they don’t value anyone beneath them as people. Their Sorceress must see everyone as nothing but pawns.”

Grovalt took another deep breath. He could almost feel the power of ice flow through him. “Well, we can’t just stand here. Let’s go.”

The trio ran across the bloodied plaza and sprinted through the winding avenues until they came to the creature’s aftermath. Homes were razed to the ground. Splintered wood burned atop steaming ashes. Citizens that could not afford to leave when the Imperium’s siren sounded had met their untimely end to a completely different danger. Their skeletons littered the wastes, the flesh on their bones melting in Graves’s manifested wrath. Within minutes, nearly an entire district had been reduced to nothing.

As much as he wanted to extinguish every flame in sight, Grovalt knew it would be impossible. Even if he could, it may leave him unable to fight or reason with the man-turned-monster before him. Recalling Maxra’s words from when he had met her, he realized that there would be equal ramifications if he were to extend his strength a bit too far again. As much as he loathed Graves for this horrid act, he very well could unleash the same power against his better judgment.

They hesitantly approached their foe. Even his mere presence heated the air to a suffocating degree. Thousands of embers littered the air around them, like a colossal swarm of fireflies. Their beauty did not reflect their origin, however. The hellish fiend turned to meet their gaze, though it did so with only one eye. One side of its face was naught but wrathful flame, and the other featured a horrifying vermilion iris. Grovalt could tell it recognized him to some extent, but any sign of the Rumhound boss had vanished.

“Graves… is it really you?”

A ripping sound echoed throughout the devastated street. The fire below its penetrating iris unfurled, revealing a revolting maw. It had no singular form. As the being spoke, its inner fire sputtered and licked at the world around it. Its voice sounded as if a hellhound were given the ability to speak. It was raspy and devoid of any feeling but hatred.

“Graves…” The being gripped its axe harder. The flames that made up its body burned brighter. “A fitting name for a hopeless existence. A dead man doomed to lead others unto death. A self-proclaimed hero in a world that preys upon hope. That name is meaningless, just as life and death are. Just as this world is pitiful and deserves naught but scorn.”

Rook glanced Grovalt’s way. He had become haggard from the intense heat radiating from Graves’s form. “If he can still talk, we could still save him. He must be in there, somewhere.”

“Save…!?” The elemental blared. “None can be saved. That is why Aza must burn! This city’s sins can only be cleansed by flame!”

“GET AWAY!” Grovalt screamed.

The creature stomped, the cobblestone buckling underneath its feet as if it were wet paper. Searing flames erupted from the ground and streaked across the street toward the trio. At Grovalt’s warning, they managed to duck into a half-destroyed building. The flames shot past the door, incinerating the little structure of the place remaining.

Upon seeing its enemies had evaded the attack, the being raised its fiery battle axe high above its head in a vertical motion. Swirls of superheated anger manifested around the blade, encircling it. Fierce chimes rang in the trio’s heads, as if a trumpet of apocalypse were being played in warning of what was to come. “LET YOUR INSIGNIFICANCE BE REALIZED!”

BOOM!

The axe’s head made contact with the ground, and instantly, a tidal wave from hell assaulted all life within fifty or so feet. What resembled a destroyed city street was reduced to a wasteland of smoldering ash and brimstone like they had come through before. Thick smoke rose and expanded outwards from the fiery beast. An etchmark on the axe, one of seven, lost its crimson glow.

The being raised its head and peered at the destruction it had carried out. As the blinding smoke cleared, an incredibly peculiar sight perplexed it. There was the trio, completely unscathed. But far stranger was the appearance of a frail old man in front of them, who also like them was none the worse for wear. “Impossible. A meager existence like yourself could not resist the flames of oblivion.”

Grovalt couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was alive, either. Their foe could have easily turned them to dust. And now, directly in front of him, was a familiar face he hadn’t seen in days. “...Old Man Hadrik…?”

Hadrik gave him a hearty laugh full of glee. “Hahahehe! I’m sorry, lad. The look on your face was too priceless!”

Grovalt looked at Lumi and Rook, then at Graves, then back to Hadrik in a fit of utter confusion. “Old Man, you’ve got to get out of here! Don’t you see what’s happening!?”

Hadrik recovered from his uproar and gave him a kind smile. “‘Course I do, son. Why do you think I’m here? I just saved yer lives! You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Well-” Hadrik began to explain, but another newcomer to the fray interjected from above.

“So you’ve finally shown your face. I was waiting for you to pull some stunt like this.” Archmage Zandos, floating a few feet off the ground in his usual astral robes, looked down on them all through his starry mask.

Without hesitation, Old Man Hadrik reached into one of his laden pockets and chucked an apple at the Archmage’s head. Though he didn’t flinch one bit, his pride was secretly cut in half. “Don’t interrupt your elders when they’re speaking, boy! How many times must I tell you this?”

“Esternn, you decrepit fool! Today, I will make sure you learn the error of your meddling ways. I’ve grown much stronger than you since then.”

“Oho! Is that right? Then show me.” He turned to Grovalt and the others in a harsh whisper. “I trust you can handle that pesky beast, eh? Just remember.”

“Wait, remember what?”

Before he could receive his answer, Old Man Hadrik… no, Esternn the Wizard of Old, threw his dirty old cloak to the side. As it fell to the ground, an ornate, pearlescent shawl graced the eyes of all present. It was Esternn’s true garb, that of an elite mage, the king of Altruin’s most trusted advisor of the past.

Zandos chuckled, then turned his head to the side so that the axe-wielding behemoth could hear him. “Graves, incinerate these pests. When you are done, aid me in finishing off this old fool as well.”

Graves gripped his axe harder than he had before, the flames making up his being burning even brighter. “Understood. They shall become one with the sea of ash beneath our feet.”