As the Conclave of Remiel commenced, the city outside Kaedmon’s Cathedral went on, unperturbed. Unaware of what had just been set in motion.

  High above the city, in the cold recesses of the Null Tower which powered the city's magic barrier, Archmagister Cassandra Brightmyr was teaching her students a lesson.

  The High Spire’s training chamber glowed pale blue with active wards. Rows of null-lines shimmered on the obsidian floor like the grooves of a ritual circle. It was a sanctified place of discipline and precision — a place where weakness was incinerated.

  Cassandra walked a slow circuit around her gathered apprentices, hands clasped behind her back. To look upon her (which most apprentices feared to do directly) was to look upon elegance weaponized. She was tall, severe, and draped in immaculate gold-trimmed robes that shimmered with stitched-in warding sigils. Her platinum hair was bound in a high, braided crown, each strand as precise as the glyphwork carved into the walls around her. Pale, sculpted features gave her the look of a statue brought to life — beautiful in the way frostbite was beautiful. Her eyes, cold and crystalline, flicked over everything with the detached interest of someone accustomed to commanding both people and principles alike.

  "Again," she ordered.

  A robed novice raised his trembling palm. The glyph he conjured was sloppy, tilted too far toward raw force and not enough toward containment. His curse-strike snapped outward — too wide.

  It hit a chained Hybrid directly in the gut. The creature — some Drytchling mutt — buckled and vomited blood, slumping against the null-pole behind it.

  Cassandra clicked her tongue.

  "Unacceptable," she said. "A proper curse does not disfigure. It erases."

  She snapped her fingers.

  Another slave was dragged forward. A Hopla this time — one ear torn, collar stained with dried spell-burns. It stumbled into the warded square, eyes dull with exhaustion.

  "Try again. You, Caldus."

  A second apprentice, younger, with the look of a boy trying to grow into a killer, stepped forward. He whispered the binding incantation with clearer precision, and this time the glyph ignited cleanly — cutting through the hybrid’s knee joint without excess.

  The Hopla dropped, shrieking.

  Cassandra allowed herself a small nod.

  "Better."

  She paced down the row of prisoners. Most were barely upright. Bruised. Marked with sigils for tracking, punishment, suppression. Their chains glowed where they met the stone floor. Not a one spoke.

  The students began to disperse, gathering their books and notes. She dismissed them with a wave.

  “Your writs are to be handed to Adept Master Solven by nightfall,” she said sharply. “Those who fail to submit transcriptions will spend the weekend watching execution trials.”

  “Yes, Archmagus,” they echoed, hurrying down the spiral stairs and out of her sight.

  As their footfalls faded, silence reclaimed the chamber — save for the faint whimpering of the hybrids still bound to the training pylons.

  Cassandra turned slowly to survey them.

  Some trembled. One was unconscious.

  But one watched her.

  A Minxit. Female, perhaps. Impossible to tell for certain — the ears had been cut short, the jaw slightly slack from an older break that had healed poorly. But the eyes… the eyes glared.

  Burning. Loathing. Not defiant, not stupid.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Just hate.

  Cassandra walked toward it.

  "Still clinging to pride?" she asked. Her voice was soft now, curious — the way one might address an unfamiliar stain.

  "You can barely breathe, and yet you glare. You glare, little beast, as though you're owed something."

  The hybrid said nothing.

  It didn't have to.

  Cassandra studied the face for a long moment. She sighed.

  "An 'it' that thinks it can look at me as an equal is a broken tool. And broken tools," she said, lifting her palm, "are better off reduced to ash."

  She uttered a single syllable.

  A lance of white fire erupted from her hand, clean and without mercy. It struck the hybrid in the chest — not explosive, not showy. Just agonizingly hot.

  The creature thrashed. Sputtered. Screamed.

  Then it was gone.

  Ash and bones. The chains rattled where it had stood.

  The other hybrids collapsed. They groaned low to the floor, heads bowed, limbs limp in submission. Not out of worship — but out of fear beyond understanding.

  Cassandra looked over them without a flicker of emotion.

  "Return them to the Ice Baths," she said.

  Two servitors emerged — robed, faceless, silent — and began unhooking the remaining hybrids. One by one, they were dragged out through the floor-hatch that led below the tower’s foundations, to the deep, freezing chambers where their pain could be kept on pause until summoned again.

  Cassandra turned back to the smoldering remains of the burned one.

  It had been more difficult to keep these pets under control recently. News of their Archons conquests had reached even their ears – though she’d done wonders to suppress any mentions of these dream visions that were spreading like wildfire among the beasts. This ‘Mandate’ nonsense was nothing but propaganda, of course, and Cassandra made it clear to her apprentices that any slave who so much displayed a whiff of interest in spreading such rumors was to be dealt with in a permanent capacity.

  This world was still their world. A human world. It still operated under Kaedmon’s Law, no matter what any of the agitators out there said. And in this world, there was a hierarchy that could never be broken. It was simple logic: humans were meant to rule over beasts. Cassandra Brightmyr had devised the perfect, unbreakable barrier of Camoran with that notion in mind. She had made it a personal project to remind the people – hybrid and human – what species was still at the top of the food chain.

  As the last of the slaves were trundled out her chamber, Cassandra turned back to the smoldering remains of the burned one.

  And for a moment — just a moment — she let herself smile.

  …

  For the guards stationed at the Null Tower’s exterior, it was time for a shift change.

  The soldiers stationed at the base of the grand structure yawned and readied themselves for the relief units, eyes focused on the storm-wracked skies beyond their city’s walls, trying their best to ignore the screaming refugees outside.

  These guards were trained soldiers – each one of them experienced enough in both System-based combat and even hand-to-hand techniques. Most of them smarted at being forced to guard the fancy mages in their tower. But – such was life. Kaedmon’s Law called, and the Council was the instrument of its execution.

  “You see them Greys come back, Krem?” one young warrior by the name of Samael asked his partner.

  Krem – a man in his late sixties by this point – scratched his backside reflexively as he acknowledged his fellow tower-guard.

  “Yeah,” he said. “With any luck, they’ll be bringing some extra supplies to see us through the winter.”

  “Would make a change…”

  “You watch that, lad,” he warned. “Even here, even with me. You want that crazy bitch up there to hear you?”

  “Uh – you know that if she did, she’d also hear you callin’ her that, Krem.”

  “Bah. It don’t matter to me. I’m old. My life’s ruined already.”

  “That ain’t true, Klem!” the youth snickered, giving the old soldier a playful jab in the ribs. “Kaedmon’s got plans for you yet. Just like he’s got plans for us all.”

  Krem looked down at the younger man, envious of the confidence shining in the lad’s amber eyes.

  “Son, when you get to my age, you find out pretty quickly that the Warrior’s Path is a young man’s game. The Law gave me a decent life on this here stage. And now, Kaedmon willin’, I’m ready to see myself out.”

  When silence met his statement, Krem was surprised. Perhaps the youth of today were finally starting to respect their elder warriors.

  But as the silence stretched on, he frowned.

  “Sam?”

  He turned to see nothing but the cold night air. Where once Samael had been, now there was nothing at all.

  In fact, none of the tower guard were around at all.

  He blinked, his mind racing to catch up with the reality before him, and only then did his eyes light on the thin trails of blood that coated the cobbled courtyard – almost invisible under the cloak of night.

  There had been twenty of them stationed here tonight. Twenty trained veterans forged in the fires of combat. They’d all been here mere seconds ago; he was sure of it.

  And the relief units hadn’t arrived either…

  “B-by Kaedmon…” he whispered. “ALAR-!”

  Something appeared from behind him. No – from beneath him.

  The ground at the back of his feet opened up and threatened to swallow him. It would have done so if not for the specter that launched itself up out of the hole in the earth like a demon rising from the depths of the abyss itself.

  Something lightning quick, impossibly stealthy, and possessed of an intelligence that it shouldn’t have.

  He felt a pair of daggers pierce his throat. He heard the purring of the creature as it whispered into his ears.

  "Looks like you got your wish, old man."

  The final sight Krem saw was a pair of amber eyes in the dark peeking at him from under a black hood.

  Then – with a single slice – he exited the world’s stage.

  Iron Lung Writes