Ahead loomed Dalis’s Wall, immense and beautiful—a deep ocean blue waterfall trapped in stone. Enchanted by the legendary Love Queen, its magic captured the attention and soothed the emotions of would-be invaders. Master Alexia Bluerose couldn’t look away, nor did she want to. The wall’s majesty soothed her, much like watching fireflies, frostflies, and thunderbugs dancing over the still waters of Eagle Lake. Beyond it lay the only home she had ever known and the few people who truly understood her.
“Sapphirica! Good to see you again!” Sir Timmeck Eckhard turned his head, resisting the wall’s alluring pull. “Feel good to be home?” He winked with his blind eye.
Alexia suppressed her relief and joy to be heading home, hiding it like the soft flesh within a tortoise’s hardened shell. For now, she had to be the person the Sapphire Kingdom needed her to be. Not even her sworn shield—half protector, half warden—could be allowed within her walls.
“I’m only here for my next assignment.”
A derisive snort came from the third member of their party, Maleon. The wizard was nearly as handsome as he was talented, and he was nearly as talented as he was confident. His voice carried the distinctive drawl of Degotus. “You should be assigned back to the Arcanium. You may have a master’s abilities, but you lack the temperament for battle.”
His words struck deep, echoing her own hidden doubts. She longed to be back in the quiet of the Arcanium, surrounded by books, away from the violence and the need to kill.
Sir Timmeck came to her defense. “Back off, Stonebreaker! She’s a better wizard than you!”
Alexia averted her eyes, discomfort burning in her chest. She wished she could vanish, to observe life from behind the stands instead of being thrust center stage as the Second Great Wizard. But this was her role, and no one, least of all herself, let her forget it.
She wanted to defend herself with the confidence expected of her, but she wasn’t confident, nor charismatic. The mask of composure was all that stood between Alexia and the world seeing her uncertainty. As Maleon’s gaze pierced her, the mask began to crack. Moments from breaking down into tears, she urged Moonstrider forward, leaving the perceptive cognitive-affectomancer behind.
Her chestnut-brown hair fluttered in the wind, flashing dark gold where the sun kissed it—a magical effect courtesy of her father’s Kavovan heritage rather than her own Leverian magic. Away from the stares and expectations, she felt part of the larger whole and immersed herself into the divine energy that permeated the world around her. The power of gods flowed through her and she became akin to a leaf blowing in the breeze, a stone settling on the ground, a cloud floating across the sky, a smoldering flame, a snowflake forming, a shining sunbeam, a placid waterfall, and a loving soul. For a few turns, she felt peace.
Above, a giant eagle soared—emperor of the sky, free to choose its path. Alexia yearned for its freedom, to veer away from the path laid before her by the Divine Thirteen and King Gideon Sapphire. She could flee. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t abandon Leveria to the Gemstone War or give up on her dreams of peace. Her power was as much a gift as a burden, and she wouldn’t squander it because she was scared or shy.
Alexia kept her focus on peace, as Moonstrider carried her toward the Wizard’s Gate.
The Wizard Road was the most secluded route to Sapphirica—no villages, no farms, only untamed wilderness. When Alexia arrived at the Wizard’s Gate, it was deserted save for a single guard in silver chainmail with a blue Sapphireguard cloak. He removed his helm and smiled at her.
Alexia tensed. Being alone with a man, especially an attractive one close to her age, unnerved her even more than a staring crowd. If eyes were hands, the guard’s eyes would have ripped off her robes and grabbed handfuls of her. “Leverith’s love! What brings you to Sapphirica, o’ fairest flower?”
Alexia’s parents and mentor had always emphasized the power of understanding. Leverians believed that devotion to Divine Leverith meant offering carnal tributes, with parents and priestesses alike encouraging frequent partnerships—assuming they were the opposite sex and of an appropriate social class—in pursuit of finding one’s life’s mate. Even if Alexia had been born with a singular interest in men, or what seemed to be the typical volume of carnal desire, she would still oppose this doctrine. Alexia had felt Leverith’s spirit firsthand and knew the goddess’s love wasn’t rooted in physical passion.
Leverith’s love was the feeling of warmth and safety you felt when held by a parent, the desire to do anything to see your best friend smile, the unbreakable bond between life’s mates that endured all trials. Alexia suspected love and lust could coexist, but they were not the same. It frustrated her that so many couldn’t tell the difference, and it hurt all the more when men like this guard ogled her, thinking that fornicating with her was a sacred passage on their pilgrimage to true love.
Understanding kept her anxiety and irritation in check, but no amount of empathy made her feel less exposed. Her sapphire-blue robes should have signaled her rank as a master at the Arcanium, and the patches on her sleeves marked her as a second-in-all-of-history master of cognitive-affectomancy. The guard should have known she was off-limits.
Despite the arrival of another master wizard and a knight, the guard continued to stare at her as if she were the choice cut of meat at a royal banquet. Alexia glanced at Maleon, hoping he would intervene.
Maleon waved his staff in front of the guard. “Open the divinedamned gate! The king would prefer to hear about the land I won him rather than have you gawk at his pretty prodigy.”
Alexia’s discomfort festered. Everybody was keen to remind her of her beauty, bringing unwanted attention for the wrong reason. To her, beauty was just embellishment—a sigil on the shield, not the shield itself. She hated how men’s eyes pulled toward her as if she were as enchanting as Dalis’s Wall.
Thankfully, Maleon’s sharp words broke the guard’s stare. With hurried apologies, the gate was opened, and Alexia rode through without looking back.
The tunnels beneath Dalis’s Wall were enchanted to mimic the sound of a great waterfall while the ceiling was indistinguishable from a vast deluge. History was rife with tales of people drowned within these walls, making even seasoned travelers wary of these walls. Alexia urged Moonstrider forward, eager to leave the passage.
Relief washed over her as she emerged into the open air of Sapphirica. The seaside city sprawled before her. In the distance, Saphirhold rose atop Azureale, the city’s lone hill—her home.
Alexia thought of the miners in Azureale, risking their lives in unstable tunnels for sapphire and meladonite. Her father taught her that the common folk were the foundation of the pyramid, supporting the lords and the king above them. Eron Bluerose had been born from more humble origins and instilled in his daughter an empathy for those who labored the most and gained the least. Alexia dreamed of advocating for them, using her power to end the war that sent them to die, and to flatten the pyramid that left them trapped beneath the burdens placed upon them. These dreams were her comfort, more than ever after the battle in Vulcan.
As they rode deeper into the city, another structure commanded her gaze: the Divincor, with its thirteen steeples and grand obelisk reaching toward the heavens. It was the heart of Sapphirica, where the Seeress of Meladon preached to a hundred thousand people on holy days. Alexia couldn’t imagine addressing such a crowd. As the tendrils of anxiety began to wrap around her, she broke free and turned her thoughts to more calming places.
The Arcanium, less grand but far more important to her, was like a perfect amethyst hidden among larger and flashier gems. Its buildings varied: the seemingly small Hall of Elixir sunk deep into the earth, the expansive Hall of Healing made of pink stone, the tree-shaped Grand Library stored vast knowledge in its trunk, branches, leaves, and roots, and the vast classrooms of the Hall of the Scholar. Her gaze lingered on the marble statue of Linus Peacemaker, the original great wizard disguised as Sunil of the Steppe.
Maleon noticed her staring. “No shame in being too sweethearted for battle, Bluerose. There you wouldn’t have to hurt anyone, and you could heal those no one else can. You know that is where you belong.”
The Stonebreaker’s observation found its target, shattering it with well-placed words. Alexia’s heart raced as memories of the battle flooded her—the scent of burnt bodies, the piercing screams of agony, the explosions of viscera and blood, the feeling of knowing you just put the final period on hundreds of stories. If she could choose her own path, she’d never set foot on a battlefield again. Her heart was for love and peace, but she was too divinedamned effective at war. King Gideon wouldn’t let his best weapon sequester itself in the Arcanium now that she had been unleashed.
Maleon smirked, knowing he had delivered a direct hit. Alexia tried to focus on him, to distract herself from reliving the nightmares. He was attractive, his sandy blonde hair showing no gray, despite being a decade older than Timmeck and his gray, balding crop. Alexia found sanctuary in recalling her arcane studies, particularly the Lifespans treatise, which theorized that divine energy prolonged the lives of cognitive-affectomancers. Alexia believed it was Leverith’s spirit that sustained her, just as it had the legendary Queen Alexia Leveria, who had looked youthful even at a hundred years old.
Her mind wandered further, running from the threads of anxiety that tried to web her to those moments of battle. Thinking of Lifespans and the ancient Love Queen bearing her name, she recalled digging in the roots of the grand library for buried tomes. Once, she had found an ancient copy of a notebook written by Alexia Leveria musing on global politics and cognitive-affectomancy, which her master historian mother helped publish. Master Ione Bluerose teased Alexia for being so gifted at healing that she could restore even the legacy of the dead.
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Nothing made her prouder than her skill with Leverith’s healing energy. She recalled healing Izak Arpione, paralyzed from a fall while climbing the towers of his family’s northern castle. The master witches told the little boy that dreamt of being a knight that he would never walk again, just as they told twelve-year-old Alexia the wound was too old for Leverith’s energies to repair. Alexia blushed, wondering if she would ever attend the Pageant ball and work up the courage to talk to him again or if she would hide away the same as she did every year when the handsome knight came to court.
No, she needed to guide her mind away from thoughts of her crippling shyness. Her proudest memory was saving the city of Tenacity from a blood plague. At thirteen, she had discovered the cure when the other master witches had been stumped. The Sapphire Kingdom had heralded her as the Savior of Tenacity ever since. Archlord Daravon had even suggested she marry his eldest grandson, though her father had thankfully rescued her from that situation—for now.
They reached the intersection of the Wizard Road and the Dawn Road, where Alexia saw the Dawn Sea and the ships in the harbor, no more than wooden toys from this distance. She imagined Divine Ovidon smiling down from Paradise, pleased with the commerce, yet Sapphirica owed much of its prosperity to her father’s efforts in negotiated trade agreements with Kavovan city-states, the Mahogany Isles, and even the Ice Tribe and Fire Tribe of Volqor.
The smell of fishmongers filled the air as children hawked their families’ catches. Timmeck bought a basket of clams and offered some to her and Maleon. “A small thanks for saving my life in Vulcan,” he said, winking with his blind eye.
As they ascended Azureale, the mansions grew more lavish, a stark contrast to the struggling peasants stacked into tenements below. Soon, the towering walls of Saphirhold came into view. The gate sentries heralded them as heroes, making Alexia wish she could flee down Azureale and bury herself in a hidden nook of the Grand Library. Timmeck exchanged quips with each guard, allowing Alexia to keep her head down and keep moving as the laughter did little to ease the screams in her mind. Alexia sighed with relief as they passed through the gates, over the fetid moat, and into the castle courtyard. She was home.
Saphirhold housed granaries, forges, stables, courtyards, and expansive training grounds that produced the kingdom’s finest warriors. Hundreds of lowborn families lived in the servant’s wing, giving the castle the feel of a small, walled town. The distant clang of blunted blades and shouts from the training grounds echoed faintly through the air. In this courtyard, however, flowers and gardens prevailed. Alexia glanced wistfully at the towering acacia, sighing when she saw no sign of Azi. The princess was likely tending herbs at the Arcanium or indulging in the kitchens, thoughts of Azi in her natural elements restoring a smile to Alexia’s face.
Stableboys rushed to tend their horses. Alexia patted Moonstrider gently, humming as she fed him a carrot from her saddlebag. A steward soon approached, one of her father’s men, who informed them King Gideon was holding court and awaiting their report. He congratulated them on their victory, Maleon calling him out for his overzealous praise. Alexia kept her eyes forward, staring blankly ahead to the moment she could seclude herself in her bedchamber.
They entered the castle through Celegana’s Hall, a grand room filled with ornately carved tables and hearths. Banners of the Eastern Leverian archlords hung above, and the hall’s layout guided all eyes toward the dais, where the Sapphire family dined beneath their banner—a giant sapphire on a field of silver. Two thousand souls gathered here daily to eat in view of their king. Alexia ran her hand over her family’s table as they passed, her mind drifting away to easier times, though she hadn’t known it then.
King Gideon often encouraged Princess Azurianna to break bread with Alexia, much to Queen Hellena’s dismay. Alexia herself had been invited to the king’s table on occasion, though she dreaded the attention. King Gideon’s interest in her made her anxious, worsened by Queen Hellena’s cold nature and Prince Halius’s covetous gaze. Memories of awkward evenings where she barely uttered a sound haunted her as they neared the great doors behind the dais.
The steward led them past those waiting for an audience. An Azureknight pushed open the grand oak doors to the throne room, announcing their arrival. Maleon strutted toward the king, yearning for praise, like a dog wagging its tail excitedly before his master after fetching a bone, while Alexia trailed behind, hoping he would take the lead. As always, her meagre sociability evaporated in the king’s presence, buried beneath a mountain of self-consciousness.
To calm herself, Alexia studied the room. Thirteen silver pillars, each as broad as sequoia trunks, supported the towering ceiling. Statues of past Sapphire monarchs lined the walls, with the older dynasty figures hidden behind those of Maithus’s lineage. Maithus, the blacksmith-turned-king who had led a peasant revolution in the Second Leverian Era took the Vile King’s daughter as his wife. He preserved the old dynasty’s statues as a reminder of their failings. Unfortunately, his heir went on to become known as the Viler King.
Light poured in from thirteen stained-glass windows, each depicting one of the Divine Thirteen. Alexia’s gaze lingered on Zamael’s grim visage before settling on Leverith’s gentle figure.
They approached the stairs leading to the throne, a sapphire-blue rug beneath their feet. Twelve steps above, Alexia saw the seats for the king’s closest advisors. Her father sat in the Steward’s Seat, a stone monstrosity designed to prevent comfort or complacency. Opposite him, Prince Halius leaned forward on the Throne of the Heir, a smaller version of the Sapphire Throne.
The Sapphire Throne resided on the thirteenth step, adorned with thirteen enormous sapphires. Yet it was King Gideon’s presence that dominated over the room. Gideon’s deep, commanding voice could have made Divine Balbaraq’s thunder sound like a mouse’s squeak. “Has the Sapphire taken Vulcan?”
A battle-hardened general, King Gideon had conquered more territory than any Sapphire in the last two centuries, including Vulcan before the Ruby reclaimed it a few years ago. King Gideon looked like how Alexia imagined Meladon himself ought to look, towering with sapphire eyes that mirrored the gems in his crown. Though not traditionally handsome, his rugged features and battle-scarred face exuded authority. Alexia flushed with shame, needled by the recollection of her fantasies about him in her youth, despite him being old enough to be her father.
Alexia’s knees would have buckled if they weren’t already bent. Despite the simplicity of his question, she flinched.
Thankfully, Maleon answered. “Vulcan is yours, Your Majesty. The Ruby fled beyond the western range, and as you commanded, I destroyed the passes. Sir Alain Rolland holds the region and awaits your orders.”
Alexia kept her eyes down, hoping to escape the audience without having to speak.
“Master Alexia Bluerose, tell me about the battle.”
Panic flooded her, tightening her chest. She trembled, buying time by clearing her throat. Gathering her scattered thoughts, Alexia recited lines she had rehearsed. “Our decoy force feigned a siege at Tintrea Pass to draw the defenders north, allowing Master Stonebreaker and I to tunnel through the eastern range. Under the cover of darkness, our infiltrator, using a cloaking draught and my muffling spell, assassinated the Ruby wizard at Tintrea. The assassin then threw a noralistone toward our decoy force, triggering Master Petra Lightwave’s beam which signaled our force to invade through our tunnels.”
She faltered as memories of burning men and their screams overwhelmed her. Tears welled in her eyes, her voice breaking.
“Our magical superiority won the day,” Maleon finished for her.
King Gideon glared at Maleon. If eyes were stones, Maleon would have two massive boulders crushing his body. “I was speaking to Master Alexia. I did not grant you leave to speak, Master Stonebreaker.”
Maleon bit his lip. He was no longer the excited dog triumphantly returning a bone to his master, but a cat flicking his tail with indignation because he had been shoved away after delivering his owner a prize mouse. Alexia felt a pang of sympathy for him.
“Continue, Alexia,” Gideon prompted, his voice softer but still unyielding.
She inhaled, held, and exhaled. “As Master Maleon said, Your Majesty, our victory was absolute. The Ruby forces fled, and we destroyed the passes to prevent their return. Sir Alain has garrisoned the western fortifications, and the ruined terrain should make a counterassault nearly impossible. Master Lightwave remained in Vulcan to monitor whether Lira Tidecaller tries to use her fog to sneak in a Celvine fleet, but Vulcan’s Hammer has decimated nearly every fleet that has ever tried to invade the northern cliffs.”
She exhaled quietly, praying her report would satisfy the king.
Applause startled her, but it did not belong to the king nor even her father. Prince Halius clapped, his strikingly handsome features twisted in a smirk. Alexia refused to meet his lime-green eyes, as she had for the past seven years.
“You are brilliant, Alexia,” Halius declared.
Alexia froze, fixing her eyes on the pattern of the rug. Her father cut in, sparing her most mercifully. “Have you any addendums to Master Bluerose’s report, Master Stonebreaker?”
It was subtle, but Alexia felt the chill in the room and it was not just coming from Sir Garrond the Dust’s magical frostblade. Maleon was naturally pulling on Seraxa’s heat, his anger feeding the divine energy into him. Yet he kept his voice professionally obedient. “Master Bluerose’s report is sufficient.”
The king asked the question that Alexia most feared. “Is she the sword that will end this war?”
Maleon hesitated, but when the king barked “Answer me!” he relented.
“Master Alexia’s abilities are extraordinary,” he admitted reluctantly. “But she is not your sword. Her heart is too soft, and another battle like this will break her mind.” He glanced now at Alexia’s father. “I implore you, do not force her to fight. She belongs in the Arcanium, where she can do much good with her talents.”
Alexia absorbed his words, feeling the truth in them. A part of her hoped her father would echo Maleon and that the king would heed their words.
Instead, her father turned his attentions to Sir Timmeck. “Sir Timmeck Eckhard, do you have anything to add.”
Timmeck cleared his throat. “Master Alexia was beyond compare, Your Majesty. She tore the earth apart, creating walls of stone where we were vulnerable and chasms to stop the enemy from attacking our flank. She tossed a Ruby cavalry charge into her chasm with a windstorm, incinerated their archers with fireballs, caused pikemen to drop their guard by blinding them with light, and buried siege equipment in a blizzard. When arrows rained upon us, she redirected them back at the Ruby.”
He removed his gorget, revealing a faint scar on his neck. “She healed me after I took a lance to the throat. I’d follow the Second Great Wizard into Zamael’s Hells because she is not just your sword, Your Majesty, she is our shield.”
Timmeck’s declaration stunned Alexia. The king, prince, and her father nodded in agreement, and she felt the burden of their expectations.
King Gideon met her eyes, a grin spreading across his usually stoic face. “Yes. Alexia is the Second Great Wizard. With her power, we will make Leveria one again. My son will rule over the entire continent, and she will be his queen.”