I was warm. I couldn’t remember the last time I was comfortably warm, not hot or frigid or the barely tolerable cold of my palace. Through the fog of half-sleep, I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia for my time as a student in the Old Empire, many centuries ago. The bed in my dormitory had felt something like this—not perfectly soft or silky like the canopy bed in my palace, but rough woolen sheets on a hard bed, like the one I had woken up in. Above me, glowing white mushrooms hung from the rafters of the small wooden cottage around me. It was dark through the four-pane window outside, and what sounded like an army of frogs and bugs had marshalled outside, making muffled, but incessant noise. Someone was talking in a faint voice from across the room, but when I tried to sit up to look at them, jolts of pain flashed through points all over my body, and I hissed and thudded back down. I heard the shuffle of booted feet coming towards me, and a middle-aged, freckled face appeared above me, with rheumy eyes in round, thick spectacles like goggles. I recognized that face. I recognized that smug grin.

“I told you so,” the Witch of the Long Marsh said in a singsong voice. A long, raspy sigh escaped from me.

“Witch,” I croaked. “What happened?”

“I saved you,” the Witch crowed, humid breath wafting over my face. “Found you in your castle all alone, helpless as a babe. I carried you on my back—over the plains, through the woods, into the mire and onto that bed you been bleeding onto for three weeks.”

“Thank you, Witch,” I muttered, sliding my eyes to look at the wall. He’d probably taken a sample of my blood and mana, or done some horrible thing I didn’t want to know about, but I wouldn’t slight him when he had just saved my life.

“You know what else I did, Ari boy?” The Witch rubbed his soft, pink hands together. I wrestled my pride down and resisted the urge to snap at him. It did not behoove a ruler to stoop to the petty level of such a creature as he.

“What did you do, Witch?” I said. The Witch’s eyes gleamed down into mine, barely blinking, as if refusing to part with the sight of my humbled state. His whole face was shaped around his eyes, it seemed like. Perhaps he wasn’t fully human. He certainly looked like a gremlin when he smiled like that.

“I warned you,” he said. He gave a little snicker. Then he pulled back up and went back across the room to whatever he had been doing. I didn’t say anything.

A few seconds of rustling and banging above, and then it smelled like wolf in the cottage. I managed to tilt my head in the direction of the sound and saw the Witch hefting a bloody grey pelt and heaving it into a black cauldron with a diameter as long as his wingspan. I faintly remembered my first visit here, when I first gathered enough power to establish my name in my territory. He told me then that my name would be great in the land, and that no warrior would be able to claim victory over me in combat. He also told me that someday a force would come that I would not be able to face on my own, and that I would need allies in order to achieve the power for my name to become securely lodged in the histories of this world for generations to come. Frankly, from an outside perspective it was hard to argue that his predictions hadn’t all come true. Even so…

“No,” I rasped.

“What was that?” called the Witch over the hissing of the cauldron, as a horrible burning stench filled the cottage. Since we were in his cottage, the Witch had probably carried me back up to the surface, where he lived in the middle of the near-impassable wetland that was his namesake. “I can’t hear you over my overwhelming rightness.” Seven stones, listening to his gloating voice was like listening to a cloud of locusts.

“You are incorrect,” I said, my voice regaining some of its richness. “Your prophecy hasn’t come true yet.” He turned at that, an eyebrow lifted, smirking.

“What, so you've not just got whipped like a dog?” he said, stirring his pot with both arms, shoving his weight behind them. “I found you lying half-dead with barely any voice left, any magic, cause you felt like it? Tell me you've not lost, Ari boy.” I raised my chin and leveled a regal stare at him, ignoring the shooting pain shooting up through my chest.

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“I will have lost when I am dead,” I said. “Am I dead?” The Witch laughed shrilly, getting down from his footstool.

“Not yet you're not,” he said. “Got you a new plan? Some gimmick to trick them out of a victory? An ambush? Or you’re going for the long game, are you? A twenty-year plot, perhaps?” He crept closer to me with each item of his list, head bobbing up and down like a pigeon, until he reached into a cupboard above me and grabbed a bundle of dried leaves. He paused there and looked down at me, narrowing his eyes and grinning at the same time.

“No, you’ve got no plan at all, Ari boy,” he said. “You’re going to walk right into their lair all blind, challenge them to a duel or some dumb stick-thought, and then you’ll die for good.”

I snorted.

“Do you think so little of me, that I would need a plan for ones such as these?” I said. He stifled a giggle and waited. My reaction had been empty, meaningless words, and he knew it as well as I.

“If you must know,” I said, sniffing, “I do have a plan.” The Witch perked up, dried leaves still in hand, leaning over me.

“Do tell,” he chirped, seemingly prepared to mock me for whatever I said next.

“To best me, those children used a spell far more powerful than they should have been capable of,” I said. “I will travel to their homeland, their so-called Capital. Then I will learn their spell, find them, and with my superior ability for magic, best them with it.” The Witch’s expression remained the same.

“A plan indeed, a plan indeed,” he said, nodding. “And what's the name of this spell, pray tell?”

I grimaced. Even naming it brought back the memories that came with it: the shame of defeat, and that revolting fear for my life.

“The Power of Friendship,” I said. The Witch’s eyes widened a fraction, just barely enough for me to notice.

“It must be a mighty spell indeed, to knock even Arubal King of Shadows off his throne,” he said slowly.

“I saw that,” I snapped. “You recognized the spell, yes?” The Witch became a picture of wide-eyed innocence.

“Only little snippets, little fragments, great Arubal King of Shadows!” he said, holding his hands up and backing away to his cauldron again. “It is a very powerful spell, I have heard. I wish you luck in learning it.” He climbed back onto his footstool, in the solemn manner of a king during some long-gone era of the Old Empire, and began stirring his cauldron again.

I scowled. There was some joke here the Witch was making with himself, one where I was likely the punchline. But I did not understand this joke yet, and snapping at or begging this horrid man to explain would be the same as admitting my defeat to him.

“Very good,” I said finally. “Do you know how I might acquire this spell?” The Witch bowed obsequiously.

“I know only one thing that may be of use to you, great Arubal King of Shadows,” he said. “These humans that defeated you—they are students at the Capital’s Royal Academy of Magic. You may find the answers you seek there.”

Frankly, it was little surprise that these humans were students. Their skills had been lacking compared to even the other humans I had faced. But that only made my defeat all the more shameful. No matter. There was little point dwelling on this. All I had to do was infiltrate their ranks, learn their secrets, and defeat them. Then all of this would become only a footnote in the books they would write of my reign.

“One last thing, great Arubal King of Shadows,” the Witch said, rubbing his hands together and twisting his fingers like worms tied together by their tails. “Should find yourself in need of an ally in the city, send my regards to the Rat.”

I nodded in resentful gratitude. Even after seeing my power grow beyond the limits of mortal comprehension, the Witch still doubted my ability to quell one measly gang of human children. Did he think I was like him, perhaps? A wretch cowering in his cesspool of a swamp, lacking both power and the will to obtain it. Someone like him needed an ally, but not I. But I filed the name away for future reference. After I dealt with the humans, this Rat might prove a useful subordinate.

“Thank you, Witch,” I said.

"Here's a way to thank me," said the Witch over the hissing of his cauldron. "How 'bout a cut of the spoils when you come back?"

"If I don't forget," I said.

"You won't, though," called the Witch. "You won't come back." He took his dripping iron ladle out of the cauldron and sniffed the grey sludge inside, then grabbing a handful of spice shakers from behind him and adding liberal quantities of each. For a moment, I was stunned to silence. Was it a prophecy? Maybe the Witch was just having a bit of fun. Or a guess based on past experience? The Witch was old, far older than I. I had no idea what to think, and there was no guarantee he would tell me which it was if I asked.

"In your dreams," I said finally. We said nothing more, and soon the only sounds were the sounds of the swamp outside and the gentle sounds of the Witch's brewing. Eventually, although thoughts of what he had meant flew in and out of my mind like messengers to a battle tent, the tug of sleep became too great, and I acquiesed.