Azahur the Unifier ruled the Radiant Empire between the years 206 and 289. He was the son of Shamsi the Builder and grandson of Kayden the Bright, and compared to his predecessors, he can certainly seem like an underachiever. Many people more clever than wise had taken to calling him “The Third One,” as if Azahur never accomplished anything worth mentioning. Nonsense! It was Azahur’s cunning as a diplomat that allowed him to complete the empire’s expansion throughout the Central Plains. By forging tightly binding alliances with the remaining independent states, he peacefully absorbed their territories without once declaring war. To Azahur, we owe the division of the empire into the twelve provinces that remain largely unchanged today. “The Third One.” Ah. How ridiculous.

In today’s lesson, we will study the consequences that the end of the empire’s Expansionist Period had on the development of modern magic. Please refer to your textbook, page one-hundred and nine.

—excerpt from a lesson by Bartholomew Mewson, lich and Professor of Magic History at the Imperial University for Applied Thaumaturgy, 2273 AK.

–

Rest 29, 2497 AK, Radiant Empire, Cleft Isles, Greyport, Cliffside.

Dinner had concluded. Calm had returned to the small home carved in the rock, and Annet was seeing Lenril and Sarmin off at the door. The father-son pair lived a few holes up on the Cliffside path.

Kaydence lay on the stone floor, staring up without blinking at the swirling rainbow patterns painted on the ceiling, trying to lose herself in the whirlpool of colours, trying—and failing—to block out the sounds of her mother’s shameless flirting with the elf. This must be another of the gods’ cruel and unusual punishments. Who could have guessed going through childhood again with an adult’s mind could be such a subtle and constant psychological torture? As an old celibate, these flipping youngsters’ courtship rituals were seriously getting on her nerves.

The fact one of the youngsters in question was her biological mother only compounded the unpleasantness. As for Lenril; the elf might have been older than Kaydence’s two combined lifetimes, have already married, and produced a kid, but he still reacted to Annet’s forward teasing like an awkward teenager. Please kill me now… Kaydence hit her head against the hard stone floor after another one of Annet’s giggles. She did not even need to look to picture the elf’s blushing face—so like his son’s.

Unfortunately, Kaydence did not feel she had the right to impede Annet’s fun. Therefore, she could only cringe in uncomfortable silence.

Neela had no such compunction, however. “Enough! Will you two lovebirds quit your incessant twitterpating?! Shack up or shut up! I’m too old to endure listening to all this billing and cooing!”

“Aw, Gran. I’m sure you were no better at my age,” Annet laughed while Kaydence groaned. She had not needed that mental image.

“Bah! In my days, there was none of this senseless galivanting. My betrothal with my Benjamin was decided by our fathers, and he was a fine gentleman, my Benjamin! He was! We only saw each other with a chaperone until our wedding day. Kids these days have no shame.”

Kaydence hated that she agreed with the old hag.

Annet smirked mischievously. “Yes, Gran. I am sure you were a perfectly sensible and demure young woman, who did everything her parents told her to. Not one step out of line, forsooth.”

“Oh, sod off.” A gnarled middle finger flipped in the brunette’s direction. “Don’t get smart with me now, silly girl. And you’re no granddaughter of mine!”

Rather than be caught between the two women, Lenril wisely decided discretion was the better part of valour. He quickly bid his goodbyes before absconding into the night with his son in tow. Annet watched them go, then closed the door and pouted in Neela’s direction. The old woman ignored her, aloofly smoothing over the wrinkles in her dress.

With an eye-roll, Kaydence’s mother crossed the room to a lily-white wardrobe tucked behind a hanging magenta curtain and a potted branch decorated with multi-coloured ribbons. She proceeded to change out of her patched white dress, trading it for a shoulderless white linen shift, an ankle-length burgundy skirt, and a front-laced bodice that gave her lean body the illusion of curves.

Kaydence sat up once her mother was decent. She frowned at her outfit. “You don’t have to keep working there. I could–”

“Nuh-uh,” Annet interrupted. “We’re not having this conversation again, sweetheart. Grizelda was kind enough to offer me a job, and the Bear is not a bad place to work at. She doesn’t make us provide extra service to the patrons, and I still make more coin serving alcohol to lonely men in one night than I do selling herbs on the marketplace for a week. Can’t say I dislike the attention either.” She fanned herself coquettishly with her hand.

“But I could–”

“Nope.” Annet pinched her daughter’s cheek. “No child of mine will be working for their grub while I’m able-bodied.”

“Listen to your mom, kid. Brats should be brats. You’ll have plenty of time to grow into a piece-of-shit adult later,” Neela grumbled morosely.

“Your crotchety great-gran is right–”

“Not your grandmother!”

“You and Sarmin already help a lot by gathering herbs in the forest. Well… Sarmin helps. I’m not so sure about my cute goofball here, hmm?”

Kaydence averted her gaze with a scowl.

“Glad we agree!” The brunette giggled and skipped to the door, pulled a cloak off a hook, and draped it over her bare, freckled shoulders. “Now, are you going to escort me to work, or will you leave your poor mother to walk the cold, dark streets alone?” She batted her eyelashes, her downturned lips trembling in fake sadness.

“Don’t be silly, woman.” Kaydence was already joining her by the door.

“That’s my line!” Neela hobbled along. “Don’t think you’ll ditch me here, brats.”

“Of course, Gran. We’ll drop you off at your house. Isn’t that right, sweetheart?

“Sure.”

Outside, the wind had died down. The winter chill had settled in for the night. Dark clouds loomed low in the sky, allowing only scant rays of moonshine to pierce down. The aetheric elevators had stopped, leaving blissful silence behind. Now, the only sounds were the rare cries of sleepy seagulls, the dull crash of the waves below, and the muffled noises of bawdy merriment and music drifting down from the brothels high atop the cliff.

Kaydence glanced over the path’s edge into the Split. Down below, lanterns drifted about the moored ships like a ballet of fireflies. Further below still, deep, deep under the inky waves, a ghastly amber gleam lit the bottom of the unnatural crevasse.

“Argh.” A sudden phantom pain throbbed in Kaydence’s stomach. Her hand gripped the front of her shirt, almost ripping the cloth, and she averted her gaze. Why do you always look? She berated herself. You know what happens when you look. Although the memories of that final day blurred together in her head, the agony of her brother’s enspelled blade slicing through her gut remained sharply branded in her soul.

Death magic did not simply go away. Death was ending, stillness. Death-attuned mana behaved like a stagnant, fetid pool, seeping back into the natural aether flow at an exceptionally sluggish pace, over years, decades even, after the initial spellcasting—unless forcefully cleansed. Until then, it created an area of desolation, lethal to small organisms and debilitating to bigger lifeforms. It was a testament to the Chosen One’s power that the aftermath of Kayden’s last strike lingered in the land, even two thousand five hundred years later, even as a dimming glow deep underwater.

Luckily, the inherent stillness of Death mana limited its ability to spread or attach itself to living organisms. Otherwise, the population of Greyport would have been decimated long ago from consuming the scarce fish from the bay. Small blessings, Kaydence mused as the ache slowly retreated to the background—never fully going away.

“Sweetie?”

“It’s nothing.” Kaydence waved her mother away and stepped off the edge. “Let’s go.”

The trio of women slowly climbed the path out of the Cliffside chasm. They walked past the cheap whorehouses and dingy bars at the top, avoiding drunkards and frostbitten prostitutes. The One-Eyed Bear tavern, owned and run by one Grizelda Southey, lay further into the city, adjacent to Main Street, where it catered to locals more than passing sailors and travellers. Kaydence would not call the establishment classy, but it lacked the aura of despair and sickness felt at the Split’s edge. She would not have let her mother work in those, even if she had to fight her for it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Greyport at night was not any more welcoming than in the daylight, but at least the obscurity camouflaged some of the city’s most depressing aspects. Yet, it also hid things more sinister, things that lurked in the dark, just out of sight. Disappearances were frequent and could not all be attributed to drunk people falling off the cliff. Ahead of the trio, the magic lampposts dotted the street with spaced-out, isolated patches of light, each like a tiny isle separated from the next by impenetrable darkness.

Impenetrable to most, at least.

Many things about Kaydence diverged from the human norm. Her eyesight was no exception. Nor was she limited to vision to appraise her surroundings. She followed one step behind her mother and Neela, who were engrossed in a conversation about Annet’s love life that Kaydence studiously avoided eavesdropping on. Instead, her gaze roamed the deep shadows, sniffing out potential danger in every recess, listening for footsteps. It was barely a conscious choice on her part. A lifetime of warfare had conditioned her to always keep her guard up and expect the worst.

“Expect the worst. Hope for the best!” one of her dearest friends used to say. However, that had been a lifetime ago. Kaydence was not too keen on hope these days.

The three women were passing under a failing, flickering streetlight and about to veer into an unlit alley towards Neela’s home, when Kaydence’s steps faltered. Her nostrils flared. Blood. Lots of it. The dark alleyway before them overflowed with its sweet, metallic stench, in quantities such it could only lead to a gruesome source. Underneath it wafted the acrid scents of urine, faeces, and old terror—the scents of violent, painful death.

The darkness ahead was too dense for even Kaydence’s eyes to pierce, so she risked spreading her mana out into the obscurity, extending her awareness past her physical senses. Her accuracy was lacking as she wanted to avoid shouting her presence to every magic user a mile around, but it was enough.

Her surreptitious probe rapidly brought back results.

There was nothing alive in that alley. Whatever had happened had already passed, leaving behind enough blood that Kaydence was convinced someone had died there. She swiftly pulled her mana back, unwilling to tempt fate. There was no telling when another mage disguised as a beggar might stumble around the corner and detect her aura. Even Neela presented a risk, weak as the old crone’s magic might be.

Her inspection had taken less than a heartbeat. Kaydence’s hand shot out and grabbed Annet’s arm before her mother could step out of the lampost’s sputtering glow. “Let’s take another route. There’s… The lights are broken there… and I saw some huge rats earlier.”

“Big rats?” Neela piped up. “Brat, are you scared of some unusually sized rodents? Why, I didn’t pick you for such a scaredy-cat.”

“Would you be more scared if I’d mentioned a pack of rabid stray dogs, you old bag of bones?!” Kaydence snapped back.

“Now, now. We’re not in any rush. If Kay feels safer taking a detour, we’ll take a detour. Don’t be such a grump, Gran. We’ll go with your suggestion, sweetie. Don’t worry.” Annet put a soothing hand atop her daughter’s, and Kaydence realised too late how hard she was squeezing her mother’s thin arm. She hurriedly let go, guilt gnawing at her.

“I’m not worried,” she rebuked gruffly. “It’s just common sense. How have you two survived so long in this place?”

Neela cackled somberly. “I wonder that every damn day.”

“Aw, stop it, you two. It’s not that bad here,” Annet laughed. “We have a home, friends, food, and a wonderful ocean view. What more could we want?”

“Says the wee lass who used to try and steal a ship to run away at sea every other week.”

Annet blushed. “That was a long time ago…”

“Bah! Hardly. And you’ve only grown sillier still. Listen, brat, your preachy mum here might try to sound all wise now, but she was the worst little rapscalli– hmm hmm hmmm!!” Neela’s speech abruptly cut off into indignant, muffled noises when Annet wrapped her hand over the elder’s mouth.

“I’m sure Kay doesn’t want to hear what her boring old mother got up to when she was young and reckless.”

Neela managed to yank the hand off her face. “You dare call yourself old in front of me? I know unmarried girls older than you! Just you wait. I’ll tell her about the time you almost got yourself kidnapped by fairies.”

“Don’t you dare!” Annet playfully slapped her shoulder. “It really was nothing that crazy.”

Kaydence let them continue to bicker as they walked, only half listening. She harboured some curiosity about Annet’s early youth, which her mother rarely discussed. Yet, her primary focus was to create as much distance as possible between them and that ominous alley. Something was wrong there, beyond the obvious.

The vague impressions she had gleaned from her quick inspection set off her instincts in the worst ways, and she wanted her new family nowhere near it.

* * *

Despite Kaydence’s worries, the rest of the trip to Neela’s house passed without incident. They bid their goodbyes to the old woman—well, Annet did—and then their steps switched toward Grizelda’s tavern.

They walked in silence. Kaydence remained on edge. Her war-honed instincts kept her tense. Every loud noise made her flinch. Her eyes darted about, scouring roof edges, shuttered windows, recessed doorways, and dark street corners. Even the narrow strip of oppressive, cloudy night sky above them between the looming overhangs was not off-limits. People were too used to the relative safety of warded towns, where the only predators were other humans rather than wild beasts. They never expected death from above. Kaydence knew better. She knew too much, perhaps, and her imagination filled every blotch of shadows with ambushers and increasingly improbable monsters, things with too many eyes and too many gaping mouths, every reflection of silver moonshine a knife or a claw coming for her mother’s throat.

She nearly lashed out when thin, cold fingers slipped between her own, but she managed to hold back at the last second, meeting a pair of patient brown eyes.

“What’s on your mind, sweetheart?” Annet asked softly. She swung their linked hand between them, skipping lightly to keep up with Kaydence’s long, nervous steps.

The girl tried to pull her hand back, but her mother’s grip tightened, and she could find no way to force the issue without hurting the fragile woman. She gave up with a sigh. “Nothing.” A weird noise snapped her attention to a rooftop, only to lock eyes with a startled, malnourished calico cat. The scraggy feline hissed at her and leapt away, vanishing beyond sight. Animals never liked Kaydence, even though they often flocked to Sarmin. Must be an elf thing, she mused with a frown. She turned back to her mother. “Do you still think about moving away?”

Annet hummed pensively. She could tell her daughter was deflecting, but she allowed it, for now. “I used to, yes, when I was little. My mother…” Her gaze drifted back in time for a little while. “Well, I often prayed that a handsome nobleman would come for me and take me away on his gilded ship. He would be the man of my dreams, of course. We’d go on all sorts of adventures and see the world together.

“We’d travel to each of the twelve provinces, see Shamsi’s Wall, the eternal snows of the Shmavahal Mountains, Phoenix Rise atop the Overpass, sail around the whirlpools in the Sea of Serenity, visit the Celestials’ floating island– Or is it a temple? I don’t quite remember. I think I saw it in the distance once. It could have been a big, weirdly-shaped cloud… Oh! The Ashen Glade, too. Maybe we’d even travel to the Black Sun Union and meet some vampires!” She giggled. “Can you imagine? Me? Meeting vampires?”

Kaydence could imagine. She did not like what she pictured.

Annet continued, “Then once we had travelled to our hearts’ content, we would marry in the middle of a vast flower field and have a big, happy family together, living in his fancy mansion. Ahhh…” She sighed wistfully, then paused and rolled her eyes. “I’ve learned since that handsome men are full of hot air more than nobility, and that they’re more likely to vanish into the night than carry you off on even a leaky rowboat.” Her voice oozed an uncharacteristic amount of venom for a woman usually overflowing with endless benevolence, earning a startled look from her daughter.

Kaydence wondered if this might be about her elusive genitor, whose name she didn’t even know. She had never broached the subject since she frankly did not care. But now, hearing her overly kindhearted mother come close to openly badmouthing someone for maybe the first time in Kaydence’s life, she was feeling the barest hint of curiosity for what sort of man could anger Annet to this extent.

If she ever learned her sire had hurt her mother in any way, Kaydence had the will and experience to come up with several suitably horrifying repayments.

“Boop.” A startling finger poked Kaydence in the nose. Blinking, she frowned down at her mother, who smiled back mischievously. “You were making a scary face, sweetie. It’s bad for your skin. You’ll end up like your great-gran.” Annet again reached up, forcefully smoothing over the annoyed wrinkles on her daughter’s forehead.

“Neela’s not really my great-grandmother, though, is she?” All this back and forth between the two could make one wonder.

“You don’t need blood ties to be family, silly.” Annet squeezed her hand softly. “Gran is just too stubborn for her own good. That’s why we need to be patient with her.”

“Not sure how much longer we can afford to be patient…”

“Aw, Kay! Don’t say that.” Annet laughed and playfully shoved her daughter, only succeeding in making herself stumble.

Kaydence sighed. She had planned an entirely different conversation, but the mood did not seem right anymore. Her mother had the strange ability to make Kaydence feel almost silly for constantly worrying—even as she thought the cheerful brunette did not worry nearly enough.

She sighed again. “You say you’ve moved past handsome men, but Lenril isn’t exactly hard to look at.”

“Aw, shush you. Aren’t you ashamed to be teasing your old mother like that? You can’t blame a woman for wanting some eye candy.” She winked. “What about you and Sarmin?”

Kaydence’s face had never shifted faster into a disturbed grimace, and Annet was suddenly too busy choking with laughter to continue this horrifying line of questioning.

The rest of the walk to the tavern passed in a more relaxed, companionable silence. Kaydence had not dropped her guard, but she was no longer jumping at shadows. Annet was still refusing to release her daughter’s hand, so the girl took the opportunity to send discrete feelers of Life magic through their point of contact.

Her eager mana was quick to hunt through the young woman’s body for any ache and tear it could fix, starting with the cold damage Annet’s fingers had sustained this afternoon and the bruise about to form from Kaydence grabbing her arm earlier. A fresh wave of guilt flooded the girl, but she hid it better than her anxiety.

Kaydence had to stop before Annet’s fast recovery became suspicious, but when she retracted her power, all that remained were superficial injuries that would fade harmlessly over the next few days. This was something she often did when she and her mother found themselves alone together, away from any crone or elf who might sniff out Kaydence’s use of magic. Such basic healing could hardly even be called a spell, but it was the least she could do… Even though Kaydence worried her regular recovery sessions might contribute to Annet’s reckless attitude. I swear, that woman has no self-preservation instincts. It was nerve-wracking.

Kaydence had managed to work herself back into her usual taciturn pessimism by the time they reached the street of the One-Eyed Bear. They veered off Main Street and, a few houses down, spotted a sign dangling off the face of a building, etched with the likeness of a bear wearing an eyepatch and drinking out of a foaming tankard.

“There we go! One mum delivered in one piece!” Annet pumped her fists in the air. “Another victory for the best daughter in the world!”

Kaydence could not roll her eyes hard enough.

She was opening her mouth for a scathing retort when, suddenly, a loud crash echoed in the night, and a body came flying out through the tavern entrance to land in a crumpled pile on the cobblestone. A tall figure followed out, nonchalantly walking over the debris of the wooden door and sneering down at the whimpering heap on the ground.

“I fucking warned you, you filthy animal. Now, don’t blame me for what happens next.”

* * * * *