The refugee line crawled across the Turkish side of the border like a wounded thing that refused to die. Trucks, battered cars, a few people on foot who had walked until their shoes tore and their pride followed. Floodlights threw hard white over the checkpoint. Paperwork moved. People moved. The only ones who did not move were the men in plain coats who kept drifting along the queue as if they were counting heads.
An officer stamped passports until his wrist was aching. Every few minutes, his superior leaned in, close enough that the clerk could smell tea and tobacco on his breath, and nodded once toward a face in the crowd.
The soldiers did not shout. They learned not to. Two men would step out of the flow, hands raised in the universal language of surrender, and they would be taken through a side gate.
An Iranian girl with a curious gaze watched it happen for the third time. She waited until the clerk slid her papers back.
"Why them?" The question came out for the hundredth time, at least to the officer.
He flicked his gaze to the superior. The wizards in plain clothes looked back, bored, as if the young girl had asked about the weather.
"Spies." The officer kept his voice low and flat. "They ride with you and wait for a signal. Once received, they will start cutting throats in the camps. We welcome you, young lady. We do not welcome the regime's rats."
The young girl swallowed. She did not look at the side gate again.
Above the checkpoint, a siren started and died in the same breath. A distant jet cut across the night, far too fast for a civilian plane. No one flinched. They had flinched on the first night. By the third day, fear had learned manners.
Inside a prefab office behind the border posts, the plain-coated men worked in shifts. One sat with a cup of dark tea that had gone cold. Another stood by the doorway with his hands behind his back, watching faces in the line with an absent focus that had nothing to do with paperwork. They were coming from different countries and conclaves.
A master of mind magic did not need questions. He needed proximity.
The standing man's eyes narrowed for half a second on a young father carrying a child. The child's gaze never left the soldiers' rifles. The father's smile was too practised. His thoughts slid away from his child and toward the fence, measuring the distance and the security, trying to find if he could escape after the attack.
Two soldiers peeled away, caught the man by the elbow, and guided him aside with the same politeness they used on the other rats. The father protested once, then stopped when the standing man met his eyes.
The father's tongue froze. The child started to cry.
The standing man stepped away and looked toward the next cluster of faces.
-
On the other side of the world, nobody cried when Ghana changed hands.
Accra woke to a government that still wore the same suits and used the same microphones. The speech was short, and the crowd in the square clapped because clapping was safer than silence. When the broadcast ended, the ports opened to Alliance hulls and the airfields opened to Alliance wings, and the army barracks stayed quiet.
A colonel stood in his office with a receiver pressed to his ear. Sweat ran down his temple. He listened to a voice that was calm, almost gentle.
"You are relieved," the voice informed him.
The colonel tried to argue. He reached for the words about legality and chain of command.
His mouth moved, but the words did not come.
The colonel's hand lowered. He hung up the phone with care, the way a man handles a bomb.
Outside, a convoy rolled past the gates toward Takoradi. The soldiers at the gate saluted the wrong flag with perfect discipline.
Nobody fired a shot.
Nobody cared.
-
In Oran, Algiers, Gellert did not bother with microphones.
He stood on a rooftop that had once been a hotel, coat collar turned up against a wind that tasted of salt and dust. Abernathy crouched beside him and watched the armoured column snake through the boulevard below. Alliance tanks took the corners wide. Infantry moved in practised pairs, eyes up, rifles down until the last second.
Gellert's attention was not on the street. It was in the sky.
A flight of jets cut south, low enough to rattle loose shutters. They were Alliance birds now, repainted in dull tones that refused to reflect the sun. A moment later, far beyond the city, the horizon flared, and the sound arrived late as a deep, satisfied thump.
Abernathy tilted his head. "Tell Atlas approach is cleaner."
Gellert's smile was thin. "It should be. The desert does not forgive laziness."
They moved during the day with Muggle steel and Muggle noise. At night, wizard units took the seams. Gellert sent small teams to places that never appeared in newspapers: a radar relay on a ridge that monitored the coastal road, a fuel depot concealed behind sand berms, and a communications hut that served half a province.
When he spoke of the South, he used names that mattered to soldiers, not tourists.
Tindouf. Tamanrasset. The long strips in the Sahara that could take a transport plane and hide it again. The garrisons that kept an eye on borders that were mostly sand and rings of smugglers.
He did not need to explain to Abernathy what dragons did to a radar mast.
-
Vinda's front smelled of diesel and hot stone, and she did not waste a thought on either.
In Libya, Ra's Ajdir fell first, then Abu Kammash, then the string of small towns that pretended to be obstacles. Vinda stood in the shade of an armoured vehicle and watched her forces move like a machine she had built with her own hands. McDuff's unit rolled past, dust caking their boots. Carrow's people held the line without drama. Nagel went south with dragon riders and a cold purpose, drawing a straight line on the map that ignored roads.
The wizard units worked at night as they do in all the frontiers. They preferred it anyway. Darkness made an honest enemy, unlike the Muggles, who started to use the war as an excuse to unleash their beastly sides on their fellow citizens. Women, children and the elderly were getting assaulted in every possible way.
A dragon formation rose beyond the dunes with only the faint shimmer of disillusionment to betray them. Two riders on each back, one to steer, one to kill. They vanished again as if the sky had blinked.
-
On Morocco's edge, Spanish and Portuguese officers discovered the joy of fighting side by side while pretending they were not enjoying it.
A Portuguese captain watched a Spanish unit clear a crossroads with unnecessary flair.
"You are eager," the captain observed.
The Spanish officer shrugged and adjusted his gloves with offended dignity. "We are professionals."
The Portuguese captain's mouth twitched. "Of course. No history here at all."
The Spanish officer gave him a look that could have started a war in any other year.
It did not. They had a different war now.
-
Corvus Black flew over Afghanistan without touching the ground. This land was cursed with the worst of the worst. Poppy fields stretched as far as the eye can see. This was what the Taliban or any other terrorist organisation was about after all. Suppressing the locals, find a twisted ideology to hide behind and start to pump poison into the world, either ideologically or physically. In Afghanistan's case, in both.
He examined the erased locations. These places below were not ruins. Ruins implied something left behind. These were wounds cut clean out of the world. Where a town had been, there was only flat, dead earth. The wind moved over it and found nothing to catch.
Farther out, prefab compounds sat like grey boxes dropped by a careless giant. Refugees filled them. Lines formed around water points and field kitchens. Every entrance had soldiers, and every clerk had a man nearby who did not wear a uniform.
One in five.
That was the average number of rodents hiding in the crowd. Some even had the genius idea of wearing women's clothing and hiding beneath their burqas. The Turkmenistan army had a very small number of female officers and fewer soldiers. Yet they were enough to search the crowd for 'crossdressers.' Once found, they were getting taken out to be kept in a different place. Soldiers were keeping their 'new taste' of dress code on, not allowing them to change. Who knows, maybe their colleagues in cages would appreciate them more this way. Being all-inclusive was important. Corvus loved all kinds of animals; his gaze drifted over the captured Taliban terrorists. Even some strange insects. He thought with a grimace.
It disgusted him more than the filth in the stronghold ahead.
He watched a master of mind magic step toward a woman carrying a bundle. The woman's face held grief. The bundle did not move.
The master's expression did not change. His fingers twitched once.
A man two places behind the woman went stiff, then tried to cry.
Two soldiers took him.
Corvus angled his flight lower and let his gaze cut across the camp. He did not enjoy this part. He did it because it was necessary. Spies of this region were not clever. But they were persistent.
He had ordered cages built for the ones they plucked. He needed sacrifices, and the world kept handing him animals who deserved to be used.
His thoughts searched for a breath of lull, and it slipped, uninvited, to Lizaveta.
It was annoying how easily her name arrived. Not because it softened him. It did not. It reminded him he was capable of softness, and that was the real irritation.
He had never planned to belong to this world. He still did not, not in the way Arcturus belonged, or Vinda, or even Grigori with his loud pride and sharper instincts. Lizaveta was different because she made him feel relaxed. She had a serene feeling to her. Always supportive, always looking for a way to stand next to him. She was a beacon of light for his soul, which was getting drenched in darkness more and more.
Corvus was a foreign object that refused to be rejected.
He exhaled, steadying the line in his mind before it bent into sentiment.
With a thought, he called his status.
[Status]
Name: Corvus Black
Age: 19
Race: Wizard, Pureblood
Titles: Heir to House Black, Lord of House Rosier
Intended Spouse: Elizaveta Volkova
Masteries: Potions, Charms, Transfiguration
Physical: S-
Magical: SS-
Talents
Comprehension Talent (Unique)
Replication Talent (Unique)
Parseltongue
Metamorphmagus
From Phoenix
-Fire Travel -Healing Tears -Dark Magic Resistance -Fire Rebirth -Longevity
From Trolls
-Rapid Regeneration -Extreme Strength
From Unicorns
-Extreme Speed -Extreme Agility
From Dementors
-Memory Mapping -Phase -Flight -Frigid Aura
Animagi Forms
-Shadow Raven: Blood Sight, Shadow Step
-White Tiger
-Basilisk: Magical Resistance, Venom Secretion, Deadly Gaze
Skills
Colour scale:White, Green, Blue, Orange, Purple, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond
Diamond
-Occlumency -Legilimency -Alchemy -Enchanting -Charms -Potions
-Transfiguration -Rituals -Duelling -Dark Arts -Runes/Ancient Runes -Magical Theory
-Arithmancy -Astronomy -Elemental Magic -Healing -Black Magic -Life Magic
-Death Magic -Soul Magic -Spatial Magic -Temporal Magic -Psychic Magic -Biological
-Manipulation -Chemical Manipulation -Aura Manipulation -Mathematics -Physics
-Chemistry -Biology -Molecular Biology -Developmental Biology -Cell Biology
-Biotechnology -Reproductive Biology -Biochemistry
Platinum
Engineering
-Civil -Mechanical -Electrical -Chemical -Computer -Industrial -Genetic
-Metallurgical -Agricultural -Aerospace -Biomedical -Nuclear
Medicine
-Internal Medicine -Surgery -Pediatrics -Obstetrics and Gynaecology -Emergency Medicine
-Anesthesiology -Radiology -Pathology -Dermatology -Neurology -Cardiology -Oncology,
-Endocrinology -Nephrology -Orthopedics -Urology
The list did not comfort him. It only reminded him how much he had taken, and how much he could still take.
Replicated expertise came with perspective. A surgeon's patience with tissue became patience with spell structure. A physicist's instinct for constraints became an instinct for ward limits. An engineer's habit of failure analysis stripped romance from every plan in the Nest and replaced it with numbers, tolerances, and margins. He did not need faith in his work anymore. He had models.
He had finished replicating Flamels; they were a fountain of Diamond-level skills. With every new replication came small parts of the Codex. With Codex came the true recipe and purpose of the Philosopher's Stone. It was not a panacea for a longer life. It was an energy source. A source transfigured from the life energy of thousands. An average Philosopher's Stone will need approximately one thousand human sacrifices to form. Once formed, it can sustain a city's electrical needs for at least two decades. Yet Flamels used it to keep themselves alive.
Based on the Codex, the elders did not simply decide to go away. There was something else that disturbed them. Forced them to create as many Philosopher's Stones as possible and leave. They also did not leave the Magicals behind. Based on the parts he got first, he was convinced that Magicals were not of this world. With Most of the Codex now in his mind, at least all the parts Flamels has managed to decipher, Magicals were offspring of the elders and Muggles.
Now the question was what disturbed such a strong race to leave a habitable world where they reigned supreme?
He reached the stronghold while still contemplating.
It squatted in a shallow valley, packed tight with men who still believed they could hide behind walls, doctrine, and fear. Watchtowers stood like broken teeth. Trucks clustered in the yard. A radio mast rose above it, stubborn, still trying to talk to a world that had already decided to stop listening.
Corvus hovered high, the air cold around him in a way no season could justify. He held himself still and raised both his hands.
From above, the Taliban base looked small. Runes formed on the soil around the base beneath him, bright lines that did not glow with beauty so much as certainty. Alchemical runes braided into the pattern, then black magic, then the hard edge of death magic and lastly soul magic. No one in that base was leaving this world in soul form or not. Ritual geometry closed around the stronghold with the sharpness of a razor. A perfect circle surrounding the stronghold.
Two smaller circles unfurled at the perimeter, linked to the main array. One for him. One for what came after.
The world noticed.
Dogs in distant compounds started to howl. Birds lifted in ragged swarms and fled in the wrong direction, as if even the sky had forgotten where safety lay. The wind dropped. The air thickened.
Plants at the valley's edge browned in seconds, green collapsing into brittle dust. The soil cracked as if it had been baked for years. Somewhere in the dark, a horse neighed.
Inside the stronghold, men looked up, and for the first time, their bravado hesitated.
Corvus descended.
He touched down in the conductor's circle with control that bordered on contempt. His boots met stone. The array accepted him.
He opened his core and bled magic into the array.
The earth shuddered.
The sky dimmed, not with clouds, but with a bruise that spread across the horizon. The radio mast sparked, then died. The men inside the circle began to scream, and the sound was not defiance. It was agony coming from the depths of their tainted soul.