The scent of sun-warmed linen and lavender soap filled Tazha’s modest chambers, a stark contrast to the sterile, metallic tang that had clung to her memories for the past decade. Ten years. Ten years since she’d dragged a trembling, starved boy from a vivarium and shattered the glass prison with a furious surge of light. Ten years since she’d found herself inhabiting the doomed body of a minor noblewoman, trapped in a story that wasn’t hers. And ten years since she’d dedicated herself to painstakingly rewiring the future warlord, Vazmir, into a polite, charming, and utterly marriageable young man. Today, the last of her work was done.
She hummed a tuneless little melody as she folded a silken tunic, placing it carefully atop a stack of clothes in a sturdy travel chest. Her heart felt lighter than it had in years. The chest itself, carved from pale, fragrant zir-wood, was an heirloom from her own Earth family, inexplicably transported with her. It was worn, but strong, ready to hold her few worldly belongings for the journey to a small coastal farm she’d already purchased in her mind – a place far from the political machinations of the Sun-Spire of Marvash, far from rumors of dark magic, and most importantly, far from the destiny of the ‘doomed villainess’ she was supposed to be.
Beshak, a six-legged winged caracal whose fur was the colour of dusk, stretched languidly from his perch on the windowsill, his two sets of ears swivelling. “Must you make that dreadful noise, Tazha? It interferes with my meditation.”
“It’s a song of freedom, Beshak,” she said, not looking up. “And you’re napping, not meditating. Don’t pretend.”
“Semantics,” he grumbled, flicking his long, tufted tail. “But ‘freedom’ is a word best kept quiet, not warbled, especially in this fortress of secrets. You haven’t packed my preferred brand of dried sprig-lizards, by the way.”
“They’re in the bottom, beneath the woolens. Don’t pretend you haven’t already sniffed them out.” She smoothed a hand over the packed lid. “Vazmir will be home in six months. The Princess is ready. All the pieces are in place. My part in ‘The Eclipse of the False Dawn’ is complete.”
Beshak’s amber eyes narrowed, fixed on her. “You sound terribly sure of yourself. And dangerously oblivious.”
[Quest 5: Arrange the Royal Betrothal. Current Status: In Progress.]
Tazha scoffed. “Oblivious to what? The Path of Fate system has been guiding me every step of the way. Vazmir’s ready. He’s charming, he’s powerful, he’s loyal to the Empire. He’s everything the Princess needs in a consort to secure her claim to the throne.” She pushed the heavy chest towards the door, ready to have it discreetly moved out. “And I, dear Beshak, am ready for a life of honest farming. No more prophecies, no more dark-magic labs, no more saving the world one awkward social encounter at a time.”
A sudden, violent tremor rattled the chamber, sending a crystal decanter tumbling from a nearby shelf. It shattered on the marble floor, scattering glittering shards. Tazha froze, her hand flying to her mouth.
“What in the Sun-Spire’s name was that?” she said, teeth clicking together.
Beshak’s ears flattened. “That, my dearest, was not an earthquake. That was a surge of uncontrolled magic, resonating with a familiar… *flavour*.”
Before Tazha could react, a shout echoed from the hallway outside, followed by a sickening crack and a strangled gasp. Then, a low, guttural roar that vibrated through the very stones of the fortress. It was a sound she hadn’t heard since she’d first pulled Vazmir from the vivarium—a feral, unrestrained surge of pure, raw power. But this time, it was far, far stronger.
Tazha rushed to her door, flinging it open. The stone passage, usually pristine, was marred. A scorch mark, still smoking faintly, blackened a section of the ornate wall. And lying in a crumpled heap, his fine silk tunic seared, was a notoriously arrogant young courtier who had, on several occasions, attempted to force his company on Tazha. He was quite dead.
Standing over him, his back to her, stood a broad, imposing figure. He was impossibly tall, broad-shouldered, clad in the dark, heavy leather and scaled-metal armour of the Imperial border legions. His dark hair, once perpetually messy, was now cropped short, severe, and dusted with the grey ash of battle. The faint glow of light magic, tinged with something darker, pulsed around him like an uncontrolled aura. He was a man carved from hardship and war, a living, breathing weapon.
He turned slowly, the leather of his pauldron creaking. Ten years. Ten years since she’d seen him last, and the boy she’d rescued had been utterly consumed by the man he’d become. His face was leaner, harsher, scarred across his left cheek and brow, fading into the sharp line of his jaw. His eyes, though – those were the same. Only now, the terrifying, desperate hunger that had been a seedling in a child’s gaze had bloomed into an all-consuming wildfire. They were a startling, impossible shade of dark amber, almost black, and currently blazing with residual fury.
Vazmir.
He had returned. Six months early. And he had just incinerated a noble in her hallway.
“Vazmir?” she breathed, her voice a thin thread. Her mind struggled to reconcile the gentle, if sometimes intense, boy she’d taught manners and strategy to with this towering, battle-hardened warlord. His presence alone seemed to pull the warmth from the air, an uncontrolled resonance of both light and dark magic swirling around him, unchecked, terrifying.
He took a single, deliberate step towards her, and the sheer force of his presence pushed her back against her doorframe. “Tazha,” he rumbled, his voice deeper, rougher, like stone grinding on stone. “My mentor. My… protector.” His gaze swept past her, into her room, and landed on the zir-wood travel chest by the door.
His eyes, already a molten amber, bled to a terrifying, absolute pitch black. The air grew heavy, thick with a sudden, suffocating pressure. The faint, ambient light of the hall seemed to dim, swallowed by the raw, suffocating fury radiating from him.
He was across the threshold in an instant, his body a wall of muscle and menace, trapping her between him and the doorframe. The scent of ozone and something sharp, metallic, filled her senses. His scarred face was inches from hers, his dark eyes like twin voids. His voice dropped to a low, dangerous rasp, a sound that promised both devotion and absolute destruction.
“Where exactly do you think you’re going, Tazha?”