"That went better than expected," Kael noted quietly.

  "It did," Eirik replied, his breath misting. "Let's get back before Olaf organizes a search party."

  They hadn't taken three steps toward the main thoroughfare when a figure detached itself from the shadows of a nearby alleyway.

  He was a young man, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with dark hair slicked back with severe precision. He held himself with a rigid posture.

  Eirik’s hand drifted toward his waist, then stopped. He felt no killing intent, only a evaluating gaze.

  "Lord Stormcrow," the young man said. "My master requests a moment of your time."

  Kael shifted his weight. "And who might your master be?"

  The young man didn't even look at Kael. "Archmage Velthan. Of the Mage Tower."

  Eirik felt a jolt of surprise. The Mage Tower. The same organization Harvas Coyne had mentioned just minutes ago. The Duke's special consultant.

  He looked at Kael.

  "Go back to the inn, Kael," Eirik said. "I'll handle this."

  Kael hesitated, his jaw tightening. "Commander, are you sure?"

  Eirik gave him a nod.

  Kael held his gaze for a heartbeat, then nodded stiffly. "As you wish." The mercenary melted back into the crowd.

  The young man turned without a word and began to walk.

  Eirik followed.

  They moved through the winding streets of Frostfall, but not toward the towering bulk of Highfrost Keep. Instead, the apprentice led him deeper into the merchant district, then into a quieter quarter of the city.

  Eirik wanted to ask where they were going. But the silence emanating from the young man made him know better.

  They turned a corner into a dead-end alley.

  At the far end stood a narrow townhouse, identical to the ones on either side, with a door of dark, polished wood and no sign, no knocker, no number.

  The apprentice stopped three paces from the door. He raised a hand and tapped a sequence on the wood—three rapid knocks, a pause, two slow, then a final sharp rap.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then, the grain of the door seemed to unravel like smoke, revealing a hallway that glowed with an amber light. The apprentice stepped through.

  Eirik found himself startled, but he followed.

  The door reformed behind them, solid.

  If the exterior was plain, the interior was stunning.

  The hallway opened into a vast, high-ceilinged room, with dark mahogany floors polished to a mirror sheen. To his left, a seating area sat around a fireplace that contained no logs, yet a dancing flame of violet and gold hovered in the hearth.

  The apprentice stopped in the center of the room and clasped his hands behind his back. He looked straight ahead.

  "Wait here," was all he said.

  Eirik stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. He looked at the apprentice, expecting further instruction, but the young man might as well have been a statue.

  So he looked.

  His eyes traced the lines of the furniture. On a low table made of a single slab of black stone sat a crystal decanter and two heavy tumblers. No bottle stoppers—just pure containment magic.

  Eirik turned his attention to a display stand against the inner wall.

  It held a single object.

  It was a helmet.

  It drew his attention not because it was particularly special, but rather it seemed the least special thing in this entire place. It was crude, probably hammered from a dull, pitted iron. There was no visor, no plume holder, just a simple, bowl-shaped iron cap with a slit for the eyes.

  It looked like something a primitive warrior would have worn.

  Eirik found himself staring at it, while the air pressure in the room suddenly dropped.

  He spun around.

  The apprentice was still standing by the door, but he had bowed his head deeply.

  Standing in the center of the room, as if he had always been there, was an old man.

  He was tall, wearing robes of charcoal grey, with no embroidery to indicate of his rank save for the power that radiated from him like heat from a forge.

  Archmage Velthan.

  "Please," the Archmage's voice was a low baritone. "Sit."

  He gestured to one of the crimson leather chairs.

  Eirik sat.

  Velthan moved to the table with the crystal decanter. He didn't summon a servant. He didn't use a spell to pour. He picked up the decanter with his own hands and poured a steaming liquid into the two tumblers.

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  He carried one to Eirik and handed it to him.

  "Tea," Velthan said. "From the southern slopes of the Sunspire. It is difficult to keep fresh this far north."

  Eirik took a cautious sip.

  It was unlike anything he had ever tasted. It was earthy but also floral, with a lingering warmth that spread through his chest, chasing away the chill of the Frostfall night.

  He wanted to comment but thought better of it.

  Eirik drank the rest in silence and set the cup down on the black stone table.

  Velthan took a sip from his own cup. He followed Eirik's gaze, which had inevitably drifted back to the crude iron helmet on the stand.

  The Archmage’s lips curled.

  "Ah. It seems you have a nice taste." He walked over to the stand and gazed at the helmet. "That thing belonged to General Abercrombie."

  Eirik froze.

  "General Abercrombie?" The name fell from his lips before he could stop it. "Who is that?"

  General Abercrombie?

  His settlement. Fort Abercrombie. The name he'd inherited without question, never wondering why a frozen mountain pass bore such a distinctly un-northern title.

  He had never considered there might be a General.

  Velthan turned to look at him. "Your counselors never said anything to you about that yet?"

  Eirik shook his head slowly.

  "Strange," Velthan mused, turning back to the helmet. He reached out, his fingers hovering inches above the pitted iron. "But come to think of it, people nowadays don’t pay any homage to history."

  He turned back to Eirik, his expression growing distant.

  "General Abercrombie existed before the Northern Kingdom was a kingdom, actually. Before the Skarls were called Skarls, and before all the magic existed in the world."

  Velthan gestured vaguely around the room.

  "To think that there was a time where we were without magic... it feels pretty strange, doesn't it? A world without cultivators and without mana flowing. But that was the world once was, about one thousand years ago."

  Eirik stared at him.

  "General Abercrombie was a man of that world," Velthan continued. "Before he had transformed it."

  The Archmage picked up the tea pot and poured more for Eirik, refilling the cup with the steaming, golden liquid.

  "But that’s the musings of an old man," Velthan said. "And I'm sure you don't want to hear any of that."

  Eirik looked at the fresh cup of tea.

  "Actually," he said, leaning forward. "Please go on."

  He made a mental note: Whatever this man is about to say is deeply tied to whatever reason the Duke summons me.

  "Do you?" Velthan set the pot down. "Very well, Lord Stormcrow. Let us speak of history then."

  The archmage settled back in his chair.

  "General Abercrombie was born a peasant. Not even a farmer's son—a charcoal burner's boy, if the oldest records are to be believed. He rose through the ranks of a powerful lord's army, who cared little for the origins of birth as long as they bring him victories. And he—Lord Sigrid—had many victories, almost becoming a king." The archmage settled deeper into his chair. "Until he was eventually assassinated by his most trusted vassal, a man named Verrik."

  Eirik committed the events to memory.

  "Verrik expected the army to fall in line behind him. Instead, General Abercrombie hunted Verrik across three provinces, and executed him personally. Then, rather than returning power to Lord Sigrid's family, he simply kept it."

  "He made himself king?"

  "He made himself General. Always General—never king. But yes, in effect, he created the first unified kingdom of man."

  Eirik leaned forward unconsciously.

  "But his true obsession was always the north. The nomadic tribes that roamed the frozen wastes, raiding and pillaging and then vanishing into the snow. For decades, they had been the bane of settled civilization."

  "And General Abercrombie decided to end them."

  "He did." The archmage nodded. "He personally led the campaign into the deep north and built a string of fortifications to secure supply lines. Your Fort Abercrombie was one of them."

  Eirik's breath caught.

  "But the crown jewel was the city he built at the very edge of the known world. Records suggest it rivaled Frostfall itself in size and sophistication."

  "Where?" Eirik asked. "I've never heard of any city north of my settlement."

  The archmage's expression darkened.

  "It became a ruin. General Abercrombie was betrayed and his supply lines were cut. He was trapped in the north with whatever loyalists remained. Yet he defended no less than thirty years before it was sacked."

  "Thirty years? Without supplies? That sounds like a myth." Eirik couldn't believe it.

  "Doesn't it?" The archmage's voice had gone quiet. "A city under constant siege, cut off from all support, surviving three decades in conditions that would have killed most armies in weeks. The question that consumed me for most of my professional life was: how?"

  He set down the old book and reached into his robes.

  "The answer, Lord Stormcrow, is rather disturbing."

  Eirik waited.

  "General Abercrombie, in his desperation, turned to the nomad shamans he'd captured during his conquests. The General made a bargain with them."

  The archmage's hand emerged from his robes, holding something small and dark.

  "He offered human sacrifice. Prisoners at first, then the wounded, then the dying. In exchange, the gods granted him power."

  Eirik took a deep breath.

  The General opened a door that could never be closed. Within a generation, what we now call cultivation had emerged. Ice magic. Blood magic. Fire magic. All of it traces back to that bargain."

  The archmage extended his hand, revealing the object fully.

  It was a shard of black crystal, no larger than a child's finger, pulsing with a light that somehow made the shadows in the room darker.

  Eirik's stomach lurched.

  The presence embedded in that crystal was familiar and slammed into him.

  Malakor.

  Sweat beaded on Eirik's forehead, and, seeing that, the archmage put it away.

  The pressure vanished.

  "This was found," the archmage said calmly, "the day after your encounter with that entity. In the courtyard of your fortress."

  Eirik's voice came out as a croak. "What? How—" How did this man retrieve something from my own fortress before my men found it?

  "We have knowledge and methods you don't yet understand, Commander." The archmage refilled Eirik's tea. "But I will tell you this: the Duke invited you to Frostfall at my direct request, for assistance with this very matter."

  Eirik struggled to process the information.

  "The Duke originally wished to test you further," the archmage continued. "Through the tournament. How you handled certain pressures."

  The archmage sipped his tea.

  "However, I've already recommended to His Grace that you be fully accepted to the team I'm assembling to investigate these matters without any delay."

  "Team?" Eirik leaned forward. "What team? Investigate what?"

  "You'll see." The archmage set down his cup with finality. "But I offer you this advice, Lord Stormcrow, and I suggest you take it seriously: Duke Thorgrim is not Cedric Stormcrow."

  The use of his father's name was deliberate.

  "The Duke demands complete obedience. I understand that your eagerness to seek out information proactively with Coyne. That eagerness is why we're having this conversation tonight, rather than in several days as I'd originally planned. But the Duke is not a man who rewards eagerness unless it's eagerness he specifically requested."

  Eirik forced himself to nod.

  "You will attend the grand ceremony tomorrow. You will observe from a distance—that will likely be the only time you see His Grace directly. You will speak as few words as possible. You will be respectful, demure, and utterly forgettable."

  "And if your recommendation is approved?"

  "You'll be notified." The archmage rose. "If it isn't, you'll enjoy the remaining tournament alongside the other visiting nobles, and you'll return home without ever speaking a word of what transpired tonight. Is that clear?"

  "Yes."

  "Good." The archmage moved toward a sideboard, producing a tray of small pastries. "A final refreshment before you depart?"

  Eirik accepted. The pastries were, naturally, exquisite.

  "One more thing." The archmage's tone shifted to casual. "Do bring Lady Fenrir with you tomorrow."

  Eirik paused mid-bite. "Isolde?"

  "I have no doubt she'll teach you a great deal for such an occasion. Court ceremonies can be treacherous for those unaccustomed."

  The door that the young man had vanished through reappeared.

  "My apprentice will escort you back to your lodgings." The archmage inclined his head fractionally. "Until we meet again, Lord Stormcrow."