Chapter 17
The World of Conjurers
The training field lay under a grey Veridian sky, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and unspoken dread. Queen Elara Veridius stood rigid, the weight of Ardonian's lies the grotesque accusations of kin-slaying, their predatory army lurking at her border under flimsy pretenses of chasing bandits, their hollow negotiations pressing down on her shoulders like a leaden mantle. Before her stood only ten conjurers. Ten souls she'd scraped together from whispers and desperation, the kingdom's fear and Ardonian's slander having chased away any others. A meager shield against the storm she knew was coming.
A sharp snap of her fingers cut the heavy silence. From the periphery, shadows coalesced into imposing figures. Lord Blackwood, a mountain of scarred muscle and grim pragmatism, moved with the silent menace of tectonic plates shifting.
Elara didn't turn. "A chair, Blackwood," she commanded, her voice low but carrying the crack of authority. Blackwood vanished, returning moments later with a simple, sturdy wooden chair. Elara sank into it, the simple act a concession to the bone-deep weariness that went beyond the physical. For a long moment, the only sound was the sigh of the wind across the barren field and the nervous shuffle of boots on gravel.
Elara's gaze lingered on the faces before her scarred veterans, untested youths, and those who carried themselves with quiet confidence.
"When I was a child," she began, her tone steady, "my tutors told me a truth so old, even the gods do not remember its first telling."
Her eyes swept across the gathering. "The world was forged from four pillars. Fire as its core, the living heart that burns beneath every stone and breathes in every soul. Water to bind that fire, to cool its rage and shape it into life. Earth to give all this a place to stand, to build, to grow. And Wind to guard it all, wrapping the world in an unseen shield."
She let the words settle. "Every conjurer draws from one of these roots. Fire to destroy and to warm. Water to heal and to drown. Earth to defend and to crush. Wind to protect and to erase. But the elements do not limit themselves to a single purpose. Each has countless shapes, countless secrets. From flame comes light, from wind comes illusion, from earth comes strength, from water comes change."
Her tone grew quieter. "Then there are the Masters—Supreme Conjurers, they were once called—whose will could carve new worlds from nothing. No one knows the path to such power. Some say it comes when a conjurer drinks deep from the well of Spirit Energy. Others say it lies in enlightenment, in understanding the true name of your element. But that knowledge was lost."
The field seemed colder as she continued. "A thousand years ago, there was a war, a thousand conjurers war that made the earth wept blood. No one remembers who began it or who struck the last blow. When it ended, the world's Spirit Energy was changed and poisoned. Draw too much of it now, and it will twist you. It will rot your core and your mind, until you are nothing but a beast of corruption."
Her eyes hardened. "Only two living souls can burn away that corruption. Myself… and Kai. We see the truth of the world, and we can cleanse what would destroy others. But the price of such a sight is not one I will speak of here."
She straightened in her chair. "There are four stages you can climb as conjurers. You may advance with the aid of my potions, or by drawing energy from the world, but remember, that energy is corrupted. A careless drink will kill you. There may be higher stages, perhaps even a road to Mastery, but those paths are buried under the ashes of war. Even the gods look away from that truth."
The Queen fell silent again, her gaze sweeping the field. "Train harder than you have ever trained before. The war coming for us will not wait for the unprepared."
The murmurs of the conjurers faded into the background, replaced by the steady hum of wind tugging at her cloak. Elara's eyes, those cursed, treasured eyes remained fixed ahead, but her thoughts drifted inward.
There was a reason she gave them only a fraction of the truth.
The Eye could do more than see corruption. With a single glance, she could thread her will into the weave of the world, bend it, command it. She could unravel the shadow clinging to Spirit Energy, purify it before drawing it into her own core. But that was the gift's smallest mercy.
The danger was what came after.
If she stared too long into the flow of reality, the veil between the world and its foundations began to thin. She would glimpse shapes behind it patterns so vast and alien her mind shrank from them. Sometimes it was light, spinning in geometries that hurt to remember. Sometimes it was a darkness so deep it seemed to breathe. She suspected the gods themselves avoided that place, not from inability, but fear.
She and Kai had both felt it: that pull, that hunger to see more. The deeper they looked, the more the Eye demanded. It whispered, offered understanding, but at a cost no mortal could bear. Stay too long, and the mind would tear itself apart trying to hold the universe's truth.
Her fingers curled in her lap. She would not tell her conjurers this. Not now. Not with a war rising. If other kingdoms learned of her sight, of Kai's… they would not see protectors, only weapons. And weapons were things to be taken or destroyed.
She drew in a slow breath, locking those thoughts away, and turned her gaze back to the conjurers. The moment for speeches was past. Now was the time for orders.
Elara rose from her chair, her cloak shifting in the wind. The conjurers straightened instinctively, like drawn blades awaiting command.
"You have four stages," she said, her voice sharper now. "Four rungs on the ladder of your craft. The first you've already taken, or you would not be here. The next three… each harder than the last. You may advance with the aid of my potions, carefully brewed to strain the corruption from what you absorb. Or you may take the risk of drawing raw Spirit Energy directly."
Her gaze swept across them. "The risk will kill most of you. The corrupted energy will burrow into your core until it swells beyond its limits. Then you will burst—your body and soul twisting into something no longer human. A corrupted beast is mindless, but cruel in its hunger."
Silence. Even the wind seemed to pause.
"I will not forbid you to take that risk," Elara continued, "but know that if you fall, it will be your brothers and sisters who put you down."
From the shadowed edge of the field, Kai watched her—the sister who had once been just a girl running barefoot through the citadel gardens, chasing dragonflies with hair full of sunlight. Now she stood like a blade drawn from the forge, her voice ringing with steel.
She's holding back, he thought, narrowing his eyes. He could feel the weight of the truth she didn't say—the burden of the Eye, the way it gnawed at the mind. He knew because it gnawed at his too.
The conjurers didn't see the strain in her shoulders, the way her breath subtly shifted when she touched on the subject of corruption. They saw only the Queen—untouchable, immovable. But Kai saw the woman beneath, the sister who carried the knowledge that too much truth could strip the soul bare.
He felt a flicker of guilt. She was playing the role they needed, while he lingered in the shadows, unseen. His instinct was to remain that way, but a part of him—the part still tied to her—wanted to step forward and speak. To tell them the cost of power.
Instead, he stayed silent. Some truths, he knew, broke more than they healed.
Elara let her words hang in the air, scanning each face before her. They met her gaze with varying degrees of resolve, fear, and pride. Satisfied—at least for now—she stepped back toward her chair, hands clasped behind her back.
From his place at the edge of the field, Kai tilted his head, smirking faintly. There she goes again, he thought. Full "Queen Elara, Protector of the Realm" mode. I swear she's been practicing speeches in front of a mirror.
The smirk faded into a sigh. He knew why she hid the hardest truths. Still… she could at least tell him when she planned to give a speech like this. Not that he'd admit it aloud, but there was something comforting about hearing her voice command a crowd. It reminded him of when she used to boss him around as a boy, ordering him to "stand straighter" or "stop dragging your boots" when Father made them attend court.
He tugged at his coat sleeve absently, muttering under his breath. "Always so serious… Elder sisters are supposed to give sweets to their little brothers, not lectures about exploding cores."
Elara's head turned slightly—just enough to make him freeze. She didn't see him. Or maybe she did, and just chose not to acknowledge him. That would be worse.
Kai frowned, straightening his shoulders automatically, then caught himself. "Hells," he whispered, "she still has me doing it."
On the field, Elara's gaze drifted briefly toward the tree line—where she knew, without looking, that her brother stood. A flicker of amusement touched her lips, gone in an instant. She returned her focus to the conjurers.
"Dismissed," she commanded.
As they dispersed, Elara sank into her chair once more, her thoughts returning to the war on the horizon, the corrupted energy that would soon flood the battlefield, and the twin burdens she and Kai carried. She hated that he was here. She was grateful he was here. Both truths lived in her chest at once.
Kai lingered a moment longer, watching her. You keep carrying everything alone, Elara, he thought, a childish defiance curling in his chest. Fine. I'll just follow you into this mess and prove I can handle it. Then you can't scold me anymore.
He knew she'd scold him anyway. But that was fine. Some things never changed.
With that, he turned and melted back into the shadows of the path leading toward the citadel, a half-smile on his lips and the weight of unspoken promises in his heart.