Otis Vayhur Wykes
A highly detailed map of Sapin unfurled beneath my eyes on top of my wooden desk, my hands planted on the edges of the human kingdom.
I frowned, looking at the nation and the pieces I had placed atop many different locations. I lit a candle with a flicker of fire magic, pressing its wick between two fingers and igniting it with a casual thought.
The pieces representing my glorious family bore the crossed twin flameswords—the crest of House Wykes since our founding centuries ago.
These markers rested across the territories under my dominion: Marlow and its surrounding territories; the Lionduchy, as Blaine so dearly loved to designate the subdivisions of his realm in crude imitation of the lesser elves; my estate in Xyrus; and the townhouse in Etistin.
I had been studying this map for years, slowly playing my cards until one day I would be able to carve my own reign in Dicathen and give the Wykes the place they had always meant to have: a throne.
But there was a reason why something like this never worked, and its name was "Lances"—the two white-core mages bound to the royal family, amongst whom my oldest son, Bairon, was a member.
Said to be empowered by a gift of the Divine Dragon, I perfectly knew how important they were for the Glayders' reign.
After all, the only reason Blaine had become king so young was because he had convinced his father to forfeit control over the Lances.
"Otis," a croaking voice called my name as its owner entered my office uninvited. "Your "allies" have all arrived."
There was only one person in House Wykes who dared to address me so casually: my lowly cousin, Sebastian.
That man never tried to hide his open disdain for me, but while he could have done something once when he was still court magician of Blaine, now he was beneath my notice.
After he lost control over the Red Gorge—an invaluable dungeon that alone could have financed my army—he was demoted to being the babysitter of Prince Curtis.
"I already knew they would come," I replied, not raising my eyes to meet Sebastian's. "Leave."
I heard Sebastian mutter an insult under his breath, which I promptly ignored. My "allies," as he called them, were a group of foreign mages coming from a land far away, led by Draneeve—a crazed man who offered me "the magic of the gods" if I agreed to serve his continent.
I couldn't care less for their magic; the fire mana arts of House Wykes were the finest in the world already.
However, there was something these Alacryans offered that I couldn't deny: a way to take back control over Bairon from his tether to House Glayder.
Blaine was a spineless man. No matter how many things I did, he would never go openly against me.
He perfectly knew he owed me his throne. I had been the one to support him once he became king, and I had been the one to later supply him with one of his Lances.
But there was always a limit.
However, once Bairon would be mine again to order around, I would gladly pray to this "Almighty Vritra" Draneeve spoke about if it would give me a kingdom.
Dragon Divine, Almighty Vritra—they were both the same thing: inexistent gods that only commoners prayed to in a futile attempt to give their lives meaning.
Yet, the Vritraism Draneeve preached had some aspects I found myself agreeing with. Strength. Absolute strength was what ruled over the world, and the Alacryans knew it; something the modern world seemed to have forgotten.
My eyes drifted to the other papers on my desk: those containing my suppositions on who the other Lance of Blaine might have been. Bairon, that coward boy, refused to tell me, thinking that his little title and mana core made him better than the House.
For that, I made my own researches, speaking with my contacts across Sapin and using my influence on Xyrus Academy to understand if the other Lance had graduated from there like Bairon.
What I was left with was a list of three suspects: Tristan Flamesworth, the oldest son of Lord Trodius of Fiery House Flamesworth; Lady Varay Aurae, head of Watery House Aurae; and Caelric Bladeheart, a brother of the Lord of Fiery House Bladeheart.
These three were the only ones that could prove an obstacle to my future reign once I regained control of Bairon.
I moved one of the pieces bearing the insignia of House Wykes across the map, pushing it west toward the city of Valden.
From Valden, I moved them north to close in on the rural and mountain towns—the locations my ancestors had conquered from the Kingdom of Elenoir during the First War.
After conquering the north, I planned to make a truce with those who truly saw how things worked. I knew Trodius Flamesworth had never liked the power of Etistin so far west.
Leaving the rest of Sapin to the Sapinese nobility, I could end what my ancestors had begun and what Blaine was incapable of concluding.
I would declare the Third War on Elenoir and bring the elven nation under my control.
I smiled widely at the thought. I was getting every day closer to my objectives.
It was only a matter of time until I declared House Wykes a royal family, rulers of Marlow, Valden, Ashber, and their surroundings, and conquerors of Ele—
I couldn't finish the thought when everything started to shake as if an earthquake was ravaging the earth.
The chandelier of my office swayed violently before crashing to the floor, shattering into a thousand crystalline fragments.
The windows fractured under the powerful tremor, shards of glass raining across the room like jagged tears.
My carefully arranged map scattered to the winds, my pieces of ambition flung across the room like toys.
"Adeline!" I shouted, calling my secretary and one of my mistresses. "What is happening?!"
I moved to look out of the broken window, my guards forming a defensive perimeter around a short, lone figure in the centre of my courtyard.
The intruder stood with an unsettling stillness, utterly unafraid of the armed men surrounding him.
A kid. A boy with long black hair like curtains of raven feathers and grey eyes like storm clouds stepped forward, wielding a green blade that caught the dying light of the setting sun.
He pointed it past my guards, the tip aimed directly at me.
The kid's voice, when it spoke, resounded across the estate, empowered by a usage of sound magic I had seen only in a few of my elven slaves.
"House Wykes," the intruder declared, his tone carrying the weight of final judgment. "I carry the will of Epheotus and of the Divine Dragon himself. For your association with the vile Vritra Clan, you will die. I offer mercy to those who are innocent, to those who are merely servants. Surrender, lay down your weapons, and flee. Do not die for traitors."
I could feel my face contort with rage as I witnessed the scene. Who dares?!
"Adeline!" I shouted again, my voice cracking with fury. "Take a communication scroll and order Bairon to return this instant! For now, I shall punish this intruder myself!"
Without waiting for her response, I strode toward the broken window, flames already licking at my fingertips. Whoever this insolent child was, he would learn the price of threatening the great House Wykes.
Corvis Eralith
I haven't missed playing the part of the little prince fearful of his gods even a little, I grimaced in my head as I gave my ultimatum to Fiery House Wykes.
Just as planned, before speaking, I gestured to Solleandro in the sky to let his full Asuran signature free for just the shortest of moments.
Not enough for a lesser to understand, but way enough for a certain Overseer of Dicathen to know.
Come on Windsom, look how zealous I am, I mocked in my head as I saw Otis Wykes jump from his office and down on the lawn of his villa, surrounded by his retinue of guards.
His mana signature, the signature of a yellow core mage, roared in anger. His ego couldn't accept a kid doing such things in his own home.
"Who are you?! Who sent you?!" Otis roared. "And don't give me your Draconsecrate bullshit."
To prove his point the Lord of House Wykes threw a fireball at me, aimed to just graze my side and scorch my skin ,without actually killing me. Unfortunately for him, I moved to the side and avoided the large fireball—all size and no true strength that spell was.
"My name is not important," I said, while cringing at my own words inside and maintaining a rigid posture and face outside. "I am just an agent of Epheotus. You and your house have forgotten who your gods are and for this: you shall pay. The Vritra Clan is a threat to Dicathen, and so are you—traitors."
I conjured Wind Surfing, letting the gathered air currents propel me straight toward Otis. The augmenters of his retinue surged forward to shield their lord, spurning my offer of Peace without hesitation.
Fiorwato cleaved cleanly through the vanguard's shield, parting stone-reinforced steel like paper despite the guard augmenting both his flesh and gear with dense earth mana.
The second guard, meanwhile, scarcely had time to react before an earth pillar erupted violently from the lawn beneath him, slamming square into his jaw and dropping him instantly to the turf.
I was sustaining a staggering array of spells simultaneously, and had been doing so without pause since casting that initial cloaking Bubblespell thirty minutes ago.
Any conventional mage at my stage—an early silver core—would have been quite spent by now, gasping for breath without an elixir or rest to replenish their depleted reserves.
Yet, even setting aside the Manacites within my gut continuously trickling ambient mana into my core, I felt practically untouched by magical fatigue.
Only my muscles carried the dull ache of exertion, but Trucewater worked wonders against physical weariness.
A shower of spellfire from the conjurers of House Wykes rained down on me; I rotated Fiorwato like a fan in front of my face, using water magic to imitate the technique of Sister House Chaffer I learnt from sparring with Albold all these years: the Waterfencing.
The spells broke down before my blade and I slowly gained space between me and Otis.
"Look at the magic prowess of a Fiery House!" Otis shouted and from behind Fiorwato's spinning shield of water I saw the nobleman jerk his arm backward, flames answering his call. "Face the power of a Wykes!"
A tongue of fire bathed me next, the full torrent of incandescent mana broke only by Fiorwato. I stomped my foot on the ground and conjured a defensive Bubblespell around me in a defensive field.
The flames bounced back and I prepared myself to strike again. I crouched and before my Bubblespell's defenses broke down I took a run and sprinted at Otis.
I cleaved through another barrage of incoming spells while snapping my offhand forward to loose a volley of compact Bubblespells.
Augmenting their surfaces on the fly with wind and sound mana alongside the Article of Justice, I compressed them to mimic high-velocity slugs from an air rifle, detonating kinetic shockwaves that rattled and stunned the guards shielding Otis.
Another jet of flames erupted in my direction.
Otis crouched low against the turf, directing the concentrated torrent of fire with the steady, lethal precision of a seasoned marksman.
The sneer twisting the Wykes patriarch's features contorted into sheer fury at the sight of his fallen servants. It was not born of grief, that much was glaringly obvious, but of wounded vanity.
House Wykes' guards were being systematically dismantled by a single opponent. By a mere boy like me.
This deluge of fire too proved just as trivial to counter.
I raised a slab of compacted earth to absorb the brunt of the primary blast, detonated a water-filled Bubblespell to snuff out the roiling backdraft, and swept Fiorwato through the remainder, cleaving the tongue of flame cleanly down its centre.
Barely three steps from my target, a final augmenter threw himself into my path, brandishing a heavy battleaxe.
I stepped inside his guard before the swing could reach, snapping Fiorwato against the haft to wrench the weapon from his grasp, and drove a vicious, angled heel straight into his solar plexus, knocking him down.
"You have no more people to throw at me, Otis," I said, calmly walking toward the nobleman; my steps meant to be both a show of strength and a show for Windsom.
True to my words, the mages of House Wykes I spared started to run for dear life; their wounds were bad, but not deadly.
In desperation Otis threw another fireball at me. This I slapped with an hand coated in water mana, extinguishing the large fireball—easily larger than I—like one extinguished a common campfire.
Surrounded by the destroyed yard of the Wykes villa I slashed Fiorwato to eliminate Otis Vayhur Wykes—and my blade was blocked by a crackling spear.
"You still haven't learnt to arrive in time after all these years serving in a military work, boy," Otis said, his voice returning cocky and cold as if he hadn't been shaking like a leaf until a second before. "Kill the intruder and be fast with it."
Outspeeding the very thunders that heralded his arrival, Bairon Wykes, Lance Thunderlord of Sapin, descended between us, proud and imposing as his spear of crackling lightning parried Fiorwato with a deafening screech.
"Yes, Father," Bairon answered, his piercing gaze locked entirely onto me.
True to his moniker, the Lance moved with blinding velocity.
He snapped an open palm forward, unleashing five concentrated bolts of lightning that struck me square, tearing a raw scream of agony from my throat.
I swept Fiorwato up to intercept his follow-through, trying desperately to read his trajectory, but he was too damn fast!
The tip of Bairon's lightning spear drove violently against my torso.
The jade bracelet encircling my wrist—the protective artifact Evascir had crafted to absorb lethal kinetic impacts—fractured with a brittle snap, disintegrating into a myriad of iridescent shards as it dispersed the fatal force of the thrust.
Bracing through the mana shockwave following the kinetic hit, I stomped hard against the soil.
Two jagged pillars of earth ruptured from the ground in tandem: one surging upward to disrupt Bairon's stance, the other launching me backward to create vital distance from the Lance.
My breath came in ragged, burning heaves, sweat stinging my eyes as I reset my guard, preparing to face one of Dicathen's strongest.