CHAPTER II
The Tower of Broken Seals
The High Tower of Kharondel rose like a spear of pale crystal from the heart of the city, its summit lost in cloud and mist even on clear days. It had been built in the Age of Dawn by the First Conclave of Mages, when the world was still young and the laws of magic were not yet fully bound. Some said its foundations reached into the bones of the earth itself, anchored to veins of star-stone that hummed with power older than the sun.
Alaric had passed its base many times in his life, delivering messages, watching robed scholars ascend the spiral stairs, feeling the faint prickle on his skin that always came when he drew near its wards. But he had never been inside.
Now, as he crossed the wide marble plaza before its gates, he felt as though he were stepping out of his own life and into a story told by others.
The bells had ceased, but their echo still rang in his ears. Soldiers hurried along the streets, and the banners of the crowned hawk snapped sharply in the cold wind. From the north, the sky held a bruised, unnatural darkness, as though twilight lingered there even at midmorning.
The gates of the High Tower stood open.
They were carved from a single slab of translucent stone, etched with runes that glowed faintly blue. As Alaric approached, the runes flared brighter, and a soft chime, like distant glass bells, sounded in the air. A tall figure in silver-gray robes stepped forward, his long white hair bound at the nape of his neck, his eyes the color of winter ice.
"State your name and purpose," the mage said, his voice calm but edged with iron.
"Alaric Thorne," Alaric replied, swallowing. "My father is Edrin Thorne of the King's Watch. He told me the Archmage has called for those who can read and carry and listen."
The mage studied him for a moment, then nodded. "The Tower has need of many hands today, young Thorne. Enter, and be swift. Fate does not wait for hesitation."
He stepped aside, and Alaric passed through the gates.
The air inside the tower was warm and faintly scented with incense and something sharper, like lightning after a storm. The great hall was circular, its walls lined with towering bookshelves that curved upward out of sight, connected by floating stairways of light. Crystals set into the floor glowed softly, illuminating intricate sigils that formed a vast, interconnected pattern—one that Alaric somehow felt was alive, breathing in slow, measured rhythm.
Dozens of people were gathered there: apprentices in simple robes, senior mages in garments embroidered with arcane symbols, scribes, guards, and messengers. At the center of the hall stood a raised dais, upon which was set a massive stone table shaped like a map of the world.
Upon that map, lines of fire glimmered and crawled.
Alaric's breath caught. He recognized the shape of the continents from the tapestries in the royal hall, but here they were rendered in dark stone and glowing crystal. The northern ranges blazed with crimson light, and from them, thin veins of gold and orange spread outward, like cracks in cooling lava.
At the head of the table stood Archmage Elyndor.
He was older than any man Alaric had ever seen, yet his back was straight, and his eyes shone with a piercing, almost terrible clarity. His beard, long and white, was braided with threads of silver and blue. Around his shoulders hung a mantle of deep indigo, clasped with a sigil that depicted a circle enclosing a flame.
"The seals are failing," Elyndor was saying to the gathered council. "Not all at once, but in a pattern that mirrors the ancient Conjunction. The wards laid in the Age of Ash were never meant to endure forever. They were meant to buy time."
"How much time remains?" asked a woman in crimson robes, her voice tight with controlled fear.
Elyndor's gaze shifted to the glowing map. "Months, perhaps. Weeks, if the breaking accelerates. Days, if the First Flame has truly been rekindled."
A murmur rippled through the hall.
"The First Flame is a myth," another mage protested. "A metaphor for destruction, not a literal—"
"—Not anymore," Elyndor interrupted. "The rider from Graywatch spoke a single word before he died. A word our ancestors feared enough to bind with blood and starfire."
"Dragon," someone whispered.
Alaric felt the word resonate through him, as though it struck a hidden string in his chest.
Elyndor raised a hand, and silence fell.
"Two hundred years ago," the Archmage said, "the last of the Great Dragons were driven into the Void Beyond the Veil, or slain upon the fields of the world. Their lord, Vorthraxx the Eternal, was bound beneath the Ironspine Mountains by the combined might of the Five Crowns and the High Circle. The seals that hold him are woven into the very bones of Aeloria. They are the runestones, the ley-lines, the ancient towers such as this one."
He gestured, and the sigils in the floor pulsed brighter.
"But the world has changed. Magic has thinned. The old alliances are broken. And something, somewhere, has begun to unravel the bindings."
A young apprentice spoke, his voice trembling. "If Vorthraxx is free… then the others—"
"—Will follow," Elyndor said softly. "As embers follow flame."
At that moment, a sharp cry rang out from one of the crystal consoles along the wall.
"Archmage! The Northern Seal—Stone of Kaer'Thalan—it has gone dark!"
The map flared. One of the crimson points in the northern mountains vanished, leaving behind a spreading black void.
Elyndor closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and when he opened them, the weight of centuries seemed to rest upon his shoulders.
"It has begun."
Alaric stood frozen at the edge of the hall, unseen and unheard, yet unable to look away. He felt as though the dream he had carried since childhood—the dream of fire and wings—was no longer confined to sleep. It was bleeding into the waking world.
A hand touched his arm.
He turned to see a girl about his age, her dark hair braided, her eyes bright with curiosity and fear in equal measure. She wore the simple gray robe of an apprentice.
"You look lost," she said quietly. "First day in the Tower?"
"Yes," Alaric admitted. "I'm Alaric."
"Lysa," she replied. "Come on. If the Archmage has summoned helpers, we'll be needed in the lower archives. When the seals start breaking, everyone starts looking for prophecies."
They descended a spiral stair that wound deep into the tower's heart. As they walked, the air grew cooler, and the light dimmed, replaced by the glow of floating orbs that drifted silently along the corridors.
"Do you believe the dragons are truly returning?" Alaric asked.
Lysa hesitated. "I believe the wards are failing. And I believe the old stories were warnings, not fairy tales."
They reached a vast chamber filled with stone tables and towering shelves of scrolls and codices. At its center stood a circular plinth upon which rested a massive tome bound in black leather, its cover marked with a symbol that made Alaric's skin prickle: a crowned serpent devouring its own tail, encircling a flame.
"The Codex of the First Age," Lysa whispered. "It's never brought out unless… unless the world is in danger."
As if in answer, the tome shuddered, and its clasps snapped open of their own accord. Pages began to turn, slowly at first, then faster, until they halted on a single, yellowed leaf.
Upon it was an illustration of a young figure standing before a burning crown, shadowed by vast wings.
And beneath it, in flowing script, a single line:
When the Seals of Stone and Star are broken,
When the Crown of Ash is seen once more,
The Child of Two Paths shall walk the Fire-Road,
And the fate of dragons and of kings
Shall be bound to his choice.
Alaric felt the world tilt.
Lysa stared at him, her eyes wide. "Alaric… your name. Your father's name. Thorne. The Fire-Road… the old tongue calls it the Thorn-Path."
Footsteps echoed behind them.
Archmage Elyndor stood at the entrance of the chamber, his gaze fixed not on the prophecy, but on Alaric.
"So," he said quietly, "the threads of fate begin to tighten at last."