[Rosen Vernasta.
The assertion that all things are is flawed, and I have just discovered why.
I stood at the edge of the nearly frozen lake, staring down at the orb floating in its center.
The northern continent holds many mysteries, and I have crossed it from coast to coast in search of strength, yet none compare to this.
Far atop the mountains, buried deep within their frozen heart, lies a hidden lake bathed in pale moonlight that filters through jagged tunnels above.
The light bends strangely here, weaving silver patterns across the glassy surface.
And there, at its center, rests the orb, blue as the summer sky, yet so vast in presence it feels as though it contains the lake itself.
When I reached out, my fingers passed straight through, as though it were made of mist and light.
Not an illusion, something else. Something untouchable.
Uhana stood beside me, wrapped in a thick fur coat, her breath spilling into the frigid air.
She leaned against the frozen stone wall, exhaling sharply.
"Rosen, this is pointless. We should be home, protecting the kingdom from the threats we can actually face."
I kept my gaze fixed on the orb. "This is no mere curiosity. It could be the key to mastering my Inheritance."
Infons, the foundation of all things that exist, bind reality together. To lack them is to be beyond definition.
This orb, if even I cannot touch it, must transcend such boundaries entirely.
If it is beyond infons, then it is beyond the reach of space, time, and even death itself.
"Rosen!" Uhana's voice cut through the cold. "Every day you waste here, people die. Your ambition will cost more than you realize."
I clenched my teeth, rising to my full height. "I need power, Uhana. I can no longer afford to lie in wait."
She stepped closer, eyes sharp. "For what?"
My fists tightened. "Liberation, for our people, for our kingdom, and now for the world itself."
It's been over two years since Nicholas died. A year of loss and retreat.
After the wedding and coronation of Nicholas and Mirabel, it was said that he finally succumbed to his illness.
Many believed he had broken free of its grasp, but in truth, the end came swiftly, without mercy.
In the months that followed, the Golden Authority struck with unprecedented speed.
They established a forward base on a small island off the northern coast of the central continent.
Even I have failed to bring it down.
A magical barrier shields it, one that deflects all things bound by space and time.
It is as if the island exists outside the flow of reality itself.
Mirabel, once a constant presence, vanished only a few months after Nicholas's death.
No word, no sighting, not even a whisper since.
I cannot dismiss the thought that she has already given birth to his heir and hidden the child from the chaos that now swallows the continent.
And there are the demons. Their numbers swell with each passing week, appearing in lands they have not touched in centuries.
They move like rot through the world, faster, bolder, hungrier.
I returned my eyes to the orb, its glow steady and unchanging. "If I can master whatever this is… perhaps there will still be a chance."
It is sickening, how we have done nothing. Kings and queens, knights and soldiers, waiting for defeat to come as if it were inevitable. That is not logic. That is surrender.
I looked at the orb and breathed out slowly. "I wish to ascend to a place where the feeling around my neck is nothing but an illusion."
I turned to Uhana with a faint smile. "Don't you?"
She placed a hand on my cheek. Her touch was cold, yet a deep warmth lay beneath.
"You may not falter in your faith, Rosen. It is unacceptable."
I looked back at the orb. "If I could obtain that power, the power to reach it, I could break the barrier."
Her warmth left. "Yes, however… should we not strive for a different goal?"
I turned to inquire further when my body, mind, and soul screamed in unison.
In an instant, I pulled Uhana back as a black blade pierced my wrist.
Standing at the entrance of the lake chamber was a man. A golden cape hung from black armor.
His teeth were sharp and vicious, his eyes dark and foreboding. His skin was rough like bark, colored like sand.
His hair was gray as ash, yet his face was that of a man no older than thirty.
His smile was not one of amusement, it was the grin of a mind swirling in a cyclone of madness.
"So you've come for us, Zehliah."
Uhana quickly healed me as I tore my arm free of his blade.
His laughter was uneven, sometimes sharp, sometimes deep, as though each breath came from a different mood entirely.
"Crazy bastard," Uhana muttered as my wound closed.
Zehliah licked the blood from his blade with deliberate slowness.
"Mmm… mmh, sweet, so sweet, ha! Yes! But also bitter. I like bitter. Bitter sticks. It clings.
He tilted his head. "Like you two, clinging to your silly little lives. Oh, but do you feel it? The end is dripping, dripping toward you."
I drew my sword, stepping forward. "I will end you here and now."
Before I could move, the world shifted. No, it folded.
The ground vanished beneath me, and I was falling through open air before a foot slammed into my gut.
Snow swallowed me whole. I rose slowly from the cold rubble, coughing. Still on the frozen lands, but far from the lake.
Then it came again, a shift, a flicker in the world's fabric, and I spun left, barely evading his strike.
I lunged, swinging with all my might, but just before my sword could cut his arm, he vanished, and pain tore across my side.
Blood sprayed. I twisted, catching his blade with my bare hand, cutting deep into my palm.
"Zehliah! You're a plague on this world, and I will cure it!"
He chuckled, lips twitching into a crooked grin.
"Cure? Hh-hhh, hah! Do you think you see me? No, no, no, you don't see me. You see… moments."
He began laughing. "Little stitched-up moments. Snip, snap, stitch. But me? I am not in your moments, Rosen. I am in between them."
My mind raced. His movement… it wasn't pure speed. It was as if he stepped through a space that wasn't bound to ours.
Each attack came from an angle reality hadn't prepared for.
A displacement? A cut in the fabric of time itself?
Or was he sliding through an unseen layer of space, emerging wherever he wished?
Uhana appeared beside me, spear of wood wrapped in lightning in her grasp.
She lunged, but Zehliah slipped, not around her, not through her, but as though she had attacked a reflection.
He reappeared behind her, knocking her to the ground.
Then he turned to me, twisting my shoulder until my arm nearly tore free from its socket.
He strolled back to collect his blade. His voice rose to a manic pitch. "Release: Hounds of Delegation!"
Golden light erupted. His blade sang, and pain screamed across my chest.
From the light came two wolves, their forms pure and radiant, howling with voices that seemed to tear at the sky itself.
They lunged, and in the next heartbeat, my right arm was gone, ripped from me and devoured whole.
My sword fell, clattering against the frozen ground, while his laughter erupted into a storm of shrieks and ragged cries, each one steeped in madness.
Uhana's eyes widened in horror as the hounds circled me, their golden light flickering like dying flames.
To them, I was nothing but prey. And perhaps, in this tale, that was all I had become.
The man's laughter faded into a low hum as he stepped onto Uhana's hand, grinding it into the ice and pinning her in place.
"Two little lovers. Two little lives. Two little things that shall… and always will… die."
His voice dripped with venom. Then his grin dissolved, his features sharpening into a grim mask.
For an instant, I saw a flash of pure darkness, followed by a light so radiant it felt almost divine.