The morning sun should have bathed Scion Hold in golden calm, but instead, a pall hung over the air like a stormcloud caught between worlds.
Inside the command hall, Arasha stood over a sprawling tactical map, marking troop positions and supply nodes in preparation for the looming noble unrest—but a sharp knock at the door shifted everything.
John, her ever-diligent secretary, burst in, breath ragged.
"Commander. News from the capital and multiple regions—illness. Sudden. Spreading fast. It's… magical in nature."
Arasha's sharp amber eyes flicked up. "What kind?"
"No one knows. They say it clings to the soul. The afflicted deteriorate rapidly—fever, delirium, eventual death. Holy magic does nothing. In fact… temples are the worst places now. The Grand Pilgrimage had just begun, and the people gathered—"
A cold dread settled in Arasha's gut. "How many?"
John swallowed. "Thousands already dead. Many more ill. It's everywhere."
Arasha dismissed him with a quiet nod, her mind racing. Political conflict could wait—this was war against an invisible, unrelenting enemy. One she didn't yet know how to fight.
Arasha wasted no time. She immediately sought Leta, the brilliant young medic she trusted above all others. She found her in the infirmary, sleeves rolled up and eyes sleepless, already tending to two recently returned scouts showing signs of the disease.
"Leta," Arasha called quietly. The medic turned, eyes rimmed red from exhaustion.
"I was expecting you."
Arasha approached, every inch the commander, but behind her steady eyes was a desperate search for knowledge she did not have.
"Holy magic isn't working," Arasha began. "Is it a curse?"
"No," Leta said grimly, brushing hair from her forehead. "It's twisted magic, layered and unstable. The virus like spell—whatever this is—evolves as it spreads. Holy spells pass through it as if it's not even there."
Arasha's lips tightened. "Then how do we fight it?"
"Alchemical intervention. Artifacts. Talismans. Potions. The kind of work we don't often rely on anymore." Leta gestured toward her desk littered with failed elixirs and faded scrolls. "The problem is, the alchemists and arcane healers capable of producing viable cures or containment relics? They're scattered. Always in the wilds or buried in personal research. Reaching them will take time."
Arasha nodded slowly, already calculating. "Then we don't waste time."
"But we must survive first," Leta added, voice firm. "You must secure gear that blocks magical flow and contamination. Cloaks, masks, gloves woven with grounding enchantments, physical barriers to prevent skin or energy contact. Metal-threaded leathers, inscribed shielding—hard to find, harder to forge. But it buys us time."
"Then we find them," Arasha said. "Buy, borrow, barter, or requisition. Anything but theft."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"What about you, Leta?"
"I'll continue working on an alchemical base," she said quietly. "But it'll take trial and error. And time we don't have."
Arasha's voice dropped low. "I'll get you that time."
Days blurred into relentless motion.
Arasha coordinated messengers, summoned craftsmen, and opened vaults she'd sworn never to touch again.
She wrote letters to alchemists she'd once rescued from a siege, to reclusive enchanters who owed her favors, to merchant princes whose children she'd once shielded from a collapsing fortress.
She dispatched knights not to war—but to trade posts, arcane markets, desert caravans, and even rumored black market outposts that dealt in magical containment gear.
All the while, she slept barely three hours a night, always seen in armor, always moving.
She drilled the Scion Order on new sanitation and magical discipline protocols. She oversaw the construction of isolation tents, designed not only for healing but also for magical sterilization.
And when the first shipment of magical containment cloaks arrived—coarse, heavy, ugly things lined with silver glyph thread—Arasha wore the first one herself. If it worked, her knights would wear them too.
She caught her reflection that night in a small mirror above her office desk. A girl no longer. A commander weathered. Worn. But still burning.
"Push harder," she murmured to her reflection. "People need you."
In the darkest corners of the realm, the conspiracy stirred, watching her with wary interest.
The banners of Scion Hold flew still and dark under an overcast sky, a grim mirror to the tension hanging thick in the air.
Arasha stood at the topmost overlook, eyes scanning the courtyard below as her knights prepared for deployment.
Each one assigned to a critical region now ravaged by the spreading affliction.
Only half were fully protected—the specialized cloaks, gloves, and shielding masks were rare and slow to produce.
She hated the arithmetic of it.
Who to send. Who to delay. Who might not return.
Her armor was polished but bore the weight of days without sleep. Her gaze was unwavering, yet a quiet tremor passed through her fingertips as she sealed the last scroll—personal communications lines between her and every deployed squad.
If they called her, she would answer.
"Commander," one of the lieutenants saluted, already in gear. "Units Raven, Crow, and Umbra are ready for departure."
Arasha nodded, swallowing the dread in her chest. "Stay in formation. Distribute the sigil-bundles evenly. If symptoms appear—report immediately. I will come."
They rode out under a pale sky, their silhouettes vanishing like ghosts into the fog.
Inside the lower chambers, beneath the Scion infirmary, Leta worked feverishly. Her hands shook as she poured the last of the bright purple extract into the flask and watched it stabilize into a pale gold shimmer.
"It works," she whispered, swaying slightly. "It's not perfect—but it works."
She had tested it.
On herself.
Because she had no time to wait. No volunteers could be risked. No lives gambled but her own.
But she had underestimated the side effects—tremors, delirium, and a chest infection that struck with brutal speed.
She barely managed to lock herself inside the isolation ward before collapsing into fever.
The news reached Arasha within the hour.
****
For the next three days, whenever she had an hour—sometimes only minutes—Arasha would sit quietly at Leta's bedside. Watching. Waiting.
Leta trembled in her sleep, skin flushed with a dangerous hue, her breath sometimes shallow. Even the best alchemical salves couldn't keep the pneumonia at bay.
Arasha placed a cold cloth on Leta's forehead again and again. When her duties pulled her away, she left strict orders with the nurses and came back the moment she could.
"I told you to lean on me so you won't overtax yourself," Arasha murmured once, brushing Leta's matted hair from her face. "But of course… you're like me."
And like her, Leta burned herself down to keep others warm.
The third night, Arasha fell asleep in the chair beside her, cloak draped over her armor, ink stains from field reports still on her gloves.
By dawn of the fourth day, Leta's fever finally broke.
When Arasha returned from reviewing deployment scrolls, she found Leta awake, groggy, and weak—but smiling faintly.
"You're here," Leta rasped.
Arasha nodded, tension melting from her shoulders for the first time in days. "You scared me."
"I had to be sure it worked…" Leta whispered, blinking against the light.
"It does," Arasha said, gently gripping her hand. "And we'll refine it. The alchemist I contacted—Master Roen—arrived this morning. He's already analyzing your mixture. Says it's ingenious but needs stabilization. Together, you'll make it viable. Scalable."
Leta's eyes welled with tears—exhaustion, relief, and finally the release of days of fear.
****
Outside, more knights rode out under gray skies. Inside, a cure was being refined.
But resources were still scarce.
The disease was still spreading.
Nobles were beginning to panic.
And rumors whispered that the pandemic was only the first phase of something far darker.
The world was unraveling.
The magical plague, once seen as a distant horror, now gnawed through the high walls of noble estates.
Sons, daughters, and aging patriarchs fell one by one.
The illusion of security shattered.
Panic bloomed like a wildfire.
And with panic came cruelty.
Reports reached Scion Hold faster than supplies. Arasha stood in her war room, fists clenched as messenger after messenger delivered news she already dreaded.
"Lord Vexen's men stormed the alchemist outpost near Duskwind Crossing—confiscated every protective set and left the infected screaming in the streets."
"Temple of the Nine Flames in Greenwater—set ablaze with three hundred pilgrims still inside. 'Purification,' they claimed."
"Noble enclaves arming private militias to seize potions from public dispensaries."
Arasha leaned over the table, knuckles white, the silver braid of her hair trembling with the subtle rage she kept chained beneath layers of discipline.
"They burn the weak while they hoard hope," she whispered.
Behind her, John looked pale but ready. "Shall I draft a response to the noble council?"
Arasha shook her head slowly. "No… I'll bring it to them."
Riding with only a dozen of her most trusted knights, Arasha moved from city to city—not with steel, but with righteous fury sharpened by justice.
Nobles who hoarded gear were stripped of their authority by royal edict—signed in advance by the young king, secretly delivered through Sir Garran.
Those who burned temples were shackled and dragged before tribunal courts reactivated under martial law. Arasha saw to it personally.
The people watched her, and where they once feared the armored knights of Scion, now they wept with relief when they saw the crest of three lightning strikes impaled into a dragon. They knew: justice had arrived.
****
At Scion Hold, Master Roen worked tirelessly within the sealed alchemical lab.
Thanks to Leta's formula and his own mastery, production had risen to nearly a hundred refined potions per hour.
His colleagues—once reclusive—were now united by Arasha's summons and her unrelenting push for coordination.
Still, Roen's face had grown pale, hands trembling after hours without pause.
Arasha noticed.
"You are forbidden," she said in a rare moment of quiet, "from collapsing like Leta. I need you, Roen. The kingdom needs you."
Roen gave a dry chuckle. "Then feed me. Scold me later."
She did both. And made sure three knights were assigned as his rotating attendants, two of them skilled in basic alchemy so Roen could delegate without guilt.
As for Leta, confined to her recovery quarters, she sulked in silence—until Arasha visited with a copy of Roen's refinements in hand.
"It's stabilized," Arasha told her, sitting beside the bed. "Because of your efforts Master Roen barely need any major tweaking of the formula. Now rest. That's an order."
Leta laughed, hoarse but bright-eyed. "You're sounding more like a mom every time you visit, Commander."
Arasha smiled faintly. "Perish that thought."
Meanwhile, in the capital...
King Alight, barely seventeen, stood silent in the royal court. Before him, nobles argued—eloquent vultures in brocade robes, twisting his edicts into lifeless parchments.
The more he demanded swift action, the more they conjured words like "jurisdiction," "territorial sanctity," "noble precedent."
Every word was a sword in slow motion.
He clenched the armrest of his throne until his fingers ached. Until he could take no more.
"Enough," he said—softly at first, then again with a voice that silenced the court.
"Enough!"
The nobles flinched. He rose to his feet.
"I see now," he said coldly, "what my crown is worth to you. A tool for your schemes. A title to dress your greed."
He looked to Linalee, who met his eyes with calm pride.
"Tell me," he said, voice low, "what it means to be a true king, Linalee. I'm ready to hear it now."
Linalee stepped forward slowly.
"It means to stop being their puppet," she whispered. "It means trusting those who serve with blood and truth, not coin and flattery. It means giving Arasha what she needs—and letting her purge the rot."
"And if it means war?"
"Then let it begin."
Back in Scion Hold, Arasha read the king's sealed response, carried by Garran himself, who had returned at last.
She read it once.
Then again.
She looked up at Garran and nodded. "Then we begin."
The skies outside darkened as the storm ahead rose—but Scion's flame burned ever brighter.
****
The rumors spread faster than the plague ever did.
Arasha, they whispered, was the true architect of the magical illness—using it to consolidate power, puppeteering the young king from the shadows with her silver tongue and militant blade.
The nobles, once merely resentful of her growing influence, were now terrified.
And that terror had a name: Lord Vexen.
Clever, well-connected, and utterly without scruples, Lord Vexen fanned the flames.
With forged testimonies, altered records, and the backing of ancient, invisible powers, he declared Arasha a traitor hiding behind righteousness.
Soon, more than half the noble court stood behind him.
And war—real, civil war—loomed like a blade just above the realm's neck.
****
At Scion Hold, the atmosphere was suffocating.
Arasha stood alone at the battlements under a sunless sky, her silver hair braided back tight, armor gleaming like steel woven from stars.
The horizon stretched dark and uncertain.
She closed her eyes, and for the first time in months, allowed herself a quiet wish:
"Let this war end before it destroys the people."
Behind her, Sir Garran approached, gaunt from weeks without peace. Linalee followed, a scroll of intercepted messages in hand.
"Vexen is cornered," Garran said, "but he's not desperate. He's confident. He believes his 'gods' will carry him through."
Linalee dropped the scroll on the war table. "He has reason to be. Your hunch was right, Arasha. They're worshippers of the Rift."
Arasha frowned. "I've never heard of that name in temple or military records."
"You wouldn't," Linalee said grimly. "It's forbidden lore—shattered remnants of an ancient chaos. The Rift isn't a god, not even a demon. It's... a crack in the veil of this world. A mouth that devours reason, life, and time."
Arasha's hands curled into fists.
"Then it has no place here."
That very night, Arasha rode alone to the location identified by Garran and Linalee—a forgotten subterranean ruin hidden in the mountains bordering the Bleeding Forest.
She had to see it for herself.
And what she found was worse than prophecy.
Candles floated in defiance of gravity, warped sigils shimmered in the dark, and hooded figures chanted in unison with voices that bled into one another like oil in water.
In the center of it all: a rift in space, a shimmering wound bleeding light that hurt the eyes.
Arasha's sword sang as it left the sheath.
"By crown and creed, by blood and will," she intoned, "you will not poison this world."
They charged her in twisted unison.
She answered with steel and sigils.
Prepared with talismans from Linalee, protective glyphs from Leta, and her own unmatched training, Arasha fought through the cultists like a blade through silk.
She shattered their wards, burned their tomes, and finally drove her blade into the core of their ritual circle.
The Rift shimmered, screamed—then collapsed in on itself with a flash of blinding violet light.
All fell silent.
She stood, panting, alone, surrounded by ash and smoldering symbols scorched into stone.
Her gut still churned.
Something about the Rift's echo lingered... watching. Remembering.
But she could not linger.
Back at Scion Hold, Garran awaited her return with Linalee and a full war dossier.
"Vexen knows," Linalee said the moment Arasha stepped inside. "We intercepted a panicked communique. He felt the collapse of the Rift cell. He's accelerating everything. Moving troops. Rallying dissenting nobles."
Garran looked grim. "He's heading toward the eastern capital—openly. With banners raised. He's not hiding anymore."
Arasha nodded.
"Then I won't either."
She turned toward the window, eyes narrowed at the horizon.
"We end this. I'll strike the root."
With full authority from King Alight and the Scion Order, Arasha begins preparations for a critical strike to eliminate Lord Vexen—not just in battle, but in symbol.
She knows she must strike swiftly, before the rest of the nobles can unify under his banner.
But she must also prepare for what lies behind him: more Rift-worshippers, hidden, waiting, perhaps even ones more powerful than those already destroyed.