The whispers slithered back to Luminis on the tongues of merchants and scouts, insidious as smoke under a door.
There were talks of the Marches and a man who performed miracles not of fire or lightning but of life itself, and they spoke the name Kaelen...
But inside the walls of the Arcane Conclave, the whispers were met with derision.
"A charlatan," Lord Valerius stated sharply.
He stood before the council with his gaze sweeping over the assembled mages.
"My son is dead. This is some hedge-mage using a dead boy's name to gather the desperate and the foolish."
An Archmage nodded.
"The Marches breed heresy like a swamp breeds flies. It is nothing."
But for Lyren, it was everything. He had spent years clawing his way out from under Kaelen's shadow, the shadow of the favored son who had failed so spectacularly.
Lyren had mastered the flame, becoming one of the most promising battlemages of his generation. He had earned his father's grudging respect, a feat he'd once thought impossible. And now this. The ghost of his brother returned not in shame but as a prophet. The thought alone was a vile poison in his veins.
"It is not nothing," Lyren said sharply.
The council members shifted with their attention turning to him. It wasn't often a boy was allowed before the Archmages, let alone speak out, but Lyren wasn't just a boy; he was the heir of House Valerius.
He stepped forward and into the light of the Aether-fueled lamps that lined the chamber.
"Whether it is Kaelen or an impostor, a cult is growing on our border. They preach a different kind of magic, a different truth. That is a threat to the Conclave of Luminis itself."
Valerius turned his head slightly, one eyebrow raised.
"A threat? From a handful of ragged outcasts?"
"An infection starts with a single sore Father" Lyren pressed his hands, clenching into fists.
The Aether within him flared with his agitation.
"They say he heals the Blight. He commands it. These are not the ravings of merchants. These reports come from our own patrols. They call his power an 'abomination.' An affront to the structured magic we practice. To the magic I practice."
He looked directly at his father, his voice dropping, layered with a desperate need for validation.
"It is a stain upon our name. A mockery of everything you have taught me. Let me go. Let me take the Flame Guard and purge this heresy before it spreads. Let me cleanse the Marches and erase this final shame."
The chamber was silent, and Valerius studied his son, seeing not just the accomplished fire mage but the desperate boy still vying for his approval. He saw the fire, the ambition, the fury, but it was a useful tool.
"Very well," Valerius declared. "Take your battlemages. Show them the true power of the Conclave. Remind the dregs of the world why Luminis is eternal. But do not fail, Lyren. Extinguish this rumor and the man behind it. I will not have the name Valerius associated with weakness… or heresy."
"It will be done," Lyren vowed, a cruel smile touching his lips.
***
Kaelen was kneeling in the dirt, his hands plunged into the earth, coaxing a line of stubborn roots to take hold. Tiara stood nearby watching him with a fond, knowing smile. He was not commanding the land; he was listening to it and negotiating with it.
The peace soon shattered.
A perimeter ward, one of Tiara's intricate weavings of Aether, flared and dissolved with a silent scream of energy, and at the edge of the clearing, five figures shimmered into existence.
They wore the robes of the Conclave's elite Flame Guard, and at their head stood Lyren.
Kaelen rose slowly, wiping the soil from his hands. He felt no fear but only sadness. He had hoped for more time.
"Lyren," Kaelen said calmly.
"Brother," Lyren spat the word like it was an insult. "Or should I call you Prophet? So this is your kingdom. A hovel of mud and sticks filled with the cast-offs of the world."
His eyes swept over the settlement, landing on the small healthy patch of green Kaelen was tending, and his lip curled in disgust.
"Playing in the dirt. How fitting for the son who always preferred weakness to strength."
Kaelen took a step forward, holding his hands out in a placating gesture.
"There's no need for this, Lyren. I am no threat to you or Luminis."
"No threat?" Lyren laughed darkly. "You are the threat! You with your twisted whispers of false magic. You shame our family. You shame our father. He sent me to put an end to it. To put an end to you."
"Father sent you?" Kaelen's calm finally wavered. The old wound, the desperate need for their father's love, ached within him. "Did he tell you the truth, Lyren? Did he tell you where the Conclave's power truly comes from?"
"I know the truth!" Lyren roared, his composure cracking. "The truth is that you are a failure who ran away to build a cult of filth! The truth is that I am the son he is proud of! The one who holds power!"
"The power you hold is a lie," Kaelen said, his voice regaining its quiet intensity.
He remembered the feeling of the focus stone and the ravenous hunger of the void.
"Luminis doesn't create magic, Lyren. It steals it. The Blight… this wasteland… It's the Conclave's creation. They are draining the life from the world to fuel their city. Our home is a parasite and we are its children."
Lyren stared at him with his face contorting with rage and disbelief. To him, these were the words of a madman, a blasphemer.
"You dare… You dare speak such filth? You would slander the Conclave, our home, our father, just to justify your own pathetic existence?"
"It's the truth," Kaelen insisted, taking another step. "I can show you. Lay down your arms. Let me show you what I have learned."
"I have seen enough!" Lyren screamed.
The disciplined control he prided himself on vanished, replaced by pure incandescent fury. This was the ultimate insult. Kaelen wasn't just surviving; he was judging him. Condemning him.
"You will not twist my mind with your lies! I will show you what true power is! I will burn your heresy from this land and you with it!"
The air crackled as the Aether surged towards Lyren, drawn by his rage. The four battlemages behind him took a step back, their own contained power dwarfed by the torrent their commander was summoning.
Heat washed over the clearing, withering the new leaves on the trees Kaelen had just coaxed to life. A sphere of fire, small at first, ignited between Lyren's outstretched hands.
It grew with terrifying speed, roaring like a caged beast, swelling until it was the size of a boulder, its light casting frantic dancing shadows. It was a spell of absolute annihilation, the pinnacle of the art Lyren had dedicated his life to mastering.
"This is the power of the Conclave brother!" Lyren bellowed over the inferno's roar. "This is the power you threw away! Now burn!"
With a final shout, he thrust his hands forward. The massive fireball erupted from his control, hurtling across the clearing directly at Kaelen.
It was a sun unleashed a wave of destruction that would leave nothing but a crater of scorched glass. Tiara gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Kaelen did not move. He did not flinch or attempt to dodge. As the roaring inferno closed the distance, threatening to swallow him whole, he simply stood his ground. He closed his eyes for a brief second, feeling empty hunger that now lived within him, the kinship with the void he had discovered in the Blight.
Then he reached out his hand.
The moment his fingers extended, something fundamental changed. The fireball suddenly had a new destination. The energy that fueled its rage, the very magic that gave it form and heat, was being pulled, siphoned away from its intended purpose. Kaelen had become a drain a silent vortex.
From Lyren's perspective, it was impossible. The fireball, his ultimate expression of power, wavered in mid-air. The roaring sound died to a hiss.
The incandescent white heat faded to orange, then to a dull red. The sphere of flame began to unravel. Streams of raw Aether, visible as shimmering ribbons of light, flowed from the dissolving inferno and into Kaelen's outstretched palm.
In the space of three heartbeats, the fireball was gone. It dissipated into nothing more than a cloud of harmless glittering motes of light that danced and swirled around Kaelen's hand before winking out of existence.
Silence descended upon the clearing, absolute and profound. Kaelen stood unscathed, his hand still extended, wreathed in the faint fading afterglow of the deconstructed spell.
The mouths of the Flame Guard hung open in disbelief, their terror replaced by sheer uncomprehending awe.
But it was Lyren's reaction that held the scene captive. The fury on his face had been wiped clean, replaced by a mask of slack-jawed horror.
The heat of his rage was gone, chased away by a deathly soul-deep chill. His creation, his power, his very identity as a fire mage had been undone as easily as blowing out a candle. It hadn't been blocked or countered. It had been… eaten. Consumed.
Humiliation, hot and sharp, warred with a primal terror he had never before known. This wasn't magic as he understood it. He looked at his brother, and for the first time he didn't see the failure. He saw a monster.
A choked, strangled sound escaped Lyren's throat. He staggered back a step, then another, his eyes wide with panic.
"What… what are you?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
"I am what the Conclave made me," Kaelen replied, his voice soft but echoing with a terrible finality. He finally lowered his hand.
The spell of silence broke. Lyren, his pride shattered and his mind reeling from the violation of everything he knew, scrambled backward. His carefully constructed world had crumbled into dust.
"This isn't over!" he snarled, the words a desperate attempt to reclaim some semblance of control.
His terror re-ignited as fury, the only emotion he had left. He pointed a shaking finger at Kaelen.
"You think this display changes anything? You are an abomination! Father will hear of this! He will come himself! He will bring the full might of the Conclave, and they will tear this place apart stone by stone! They will scour your memory from the world!"
Without another word, he turned and fled, his elite mages their faces pale with shock, scrambling to follow. They vanished as they had appeared in a shimmer of displaced air…