Chapter 7 | Part 1

The tower was damaged.

Drusniel stopped at the edge of the treeline, chest heaving from the climb. Scorch marks blackened the lower walls. The door hung crooked on broken hinges. One of the outbuildings had collapsed entirely, timbers still smoldering.

They came for him too.

The thought brought strange comfort. Shared enemy. Shared threat. He wasn’t alone in this anymore.

He crossed the clearing at a run. His legs ached. His lungs burned. He hadn’t slept since the massacre, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t done anything except climb toward the surface with the single-minded focus of someone who had nothing left but forward motion.

“Zaelar!”

The old mage appeared in the broken doorway. His robes were singed. A cut ran along his cheek. But his eyes—those pale, calculating eyes—were sharp as ever.

“You survived.” Zaelar’s voice carried something that might have been relief. “Thank the gods. When I heard what happened, I feared the worst.”

“They’re all dead.” The words came out flat. Empty. Drusniel had repeated them so many times in his own head that they’d lost meaning. Just sounds now. Just noise. “My parents. The servants. Everyone.”

“I know.” Zaelar descended the steps, moving with careful dignity despite the damage around him. His robes were singed at the hem. Ash smudged his sleeve. “Word travels fast when a noble house burns. The markets were full of it by morning.”

“Morning.” Drusniel looked at the sky. How long had he been climbing? How much time had passed? “Is it morning?”

“Just past dawn.” Zaelar studied him with something that might have been concern. “When did you last sleep? Eat?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You’re barely standing.” The old mage reached out, steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. The touch was warm. Almost fatherly. “Come inside. We have much to discuss, but not until you’ve had something to eat.”

“I don’t want—”

“I know you don’t want food. I know you don’t want sleep. I know you want to find the people who did this and make them suffer.” Zaelar’s voice hardened. “But you can’t do any of that if you collapse from exhaustion. Your enemies won’t wait for you to recover. So you will eat, and then we will talk about how to destroy House Vrinn.”

Something flickered at the edge of Drusniel’s grief. A question.

“How do you know it was Vrinn?”

Zaelar gestured at the ruined outbuilding. The scorch marks on his tower walls. “Word travels. The attack was coordinated—your family wasn’t the only target. They came for me as well, that same night. Whoever orchestrated the massacre decided I was a loose end.” His jaw tightened. “They underestimated how long I’ve survived on this surface. And how many defenses a paranoid old mage accumulates over the centuries.”

The scorch marks on the walls. The broken door. The collapsed building. Evidence of an attack, perfectly staged.

The timing is suspicious, a small voice whispered in Drusniel’s mind. The same night? Both of us targeted?

But the thought slipped away before he could examine it. He was too hollow for questions. Too empty for suspicion.

“I have nowhere to go,” he said. “My family is dead. The compound is ash. If I return to Umbra’kor, the other houses will tear apart whatever’s left of House Thel’varin. The vultures are probably already circling.”

“You can’t return to Umbra’kor.” Zaelar’s voice was firm. Gentle. The voice of someone who understood loss—who had perhaps lost things himself, long ago. “Not yet. Not until you’re strong enough to take back what was stolen from you.”

“How?” The word cracked. The grief surged up, threatening to drown him again. “How do I become strong enough to destroy an entire house? I’m nothing. I failed the trials. I have no standing, no resources, no—”

“You have power.” Zaelar cut him off, his pale eyes suddenly intense. “You have potential that the priests of Venemora couldn’t measure because it doesn’t fit their narrow definitions. And you have me.” He gestured toward the damaged tower. “We’ve both been attacked by the same enemy. We both have reasons to want House Vrinn destroyed. That makes us allies.”

Allies. The word settled into Drusniel’s chest, filling some small portion of the hollow space.

“I’ll do anything,” he said. His voice was steady now. Cold. The grief had crystallized into something harder. “Tell me what you need.”

Zaelar studied him for a long moment. The hourglasses in the study behind him ticked softly, measuring time that suddenly meant nothing.

“There is a way,” Zaelar said finally. “I didn’t want to mention it before. You weren’t ready. But now…” He looked at the ruins around them. “Now, I think you have no choice.”

“Tell me.”

“Come inside. We have much to discuss, and little time.”

Drusniel followed him through the broken door. Glass crunched under his feet. Papers scattered across the floor. The careful order of Zaelar’s study had been violated—books pulled from shelves, instruments overturned.

The damage looked thorough. Convincing. The kind of attack a paranoid old mage might barely survive.

Drusniel didn’t question it. He saw a man who had been attacked by the same enemies. A teacher who had been hunted alongside his student.

He saw an ally.

Zaelar smiled. It almost reached his eyes.

“Sit down. Let me tell you about Wyrmreach.”

End of Chapter 7.1 —> 7.2: The Package: The Mission