The capital stinks.

  It’s not just the unwashed bodies and open sewers. Not just the old, heat-baked stone and sour wine. This place reeks of hypocrisy; of powdered courtiers and painted priests, of smiling liars shouting about the strength of the king and kingdom while the kingdom crumbles.

  Lorcan has always hated it here.

  The streets are layered in grime and the poor. Cracked tan clay and chipped sandstone bricks buckle under the weight of an overcrowded, underfed city. The slums are a maze of leaning walls and broken windows. Gutters overflow with the city’s filth, and barefoot kids hide in the alleys, ready to pickpocket the unobservant. Zealots stand on corners, surrounded by crowds, hawking their god.

  “Repent! It will take the crown next!” one howls, waving his arms dramatically. With talk like that, the guards will be by soon.

  The real filth is inside the palace.

  Inside, where the stones are scrubbed clean and gardens bloom like the Zone isn’t swallowing villages whole; like they are not at war. Nobles wear gold-threaded cloaks and ask about troop numbers like it’s chess. Their silk sashes flutter in the breeze, and their sickly-sweet perfumes clog the air. Lorcan walks past guards in ornamental armor - polished steel - and wonders if any of them have ever even seen a battlefield.

  He crosses the courtyard, past fountains that run clear while half the outer ring drinks tainted water from the canals. The Archive looms ahead, ancient glass and carved domes, ringed with flowers and incense smoke. It’s beautiful and hollow. Just like everything else in this place.

  The commander is still with the king, no doubt smiling through another round of coin-counting and mage-begging. The commander has the stomach for it. Lorcan doesn’t. That’s why he's the one elbow-deep in old books each day while the commander tries to squeeze miracles from noble hands.

  They’ve been in the city for five days. Lorcan has been counting down to their departure since the moment they arrived.

  Another week, if the gods are kind. Less, if they’re lucky. They’re supposed to head back to Graywatch, the last border post before the Chaos Zone. The teams they’ve sent across the kingdom haven’t reported much back. And what has returned… isn’t worth the paper.

  Lorcan hasn’t told the commander, but he’s starting to think none of those teams will turn up much. Maybe it’s better that the magical and ancient stay buried.

  The Archive is cooler than the streets. Quieter. The scribes drift about like pale moths, all ink-stained fingers and sidelong glances, stepping around him like he’s the insect here.

  He rounds a bend toward the Royal Archives, deeper than most are allowed, dodging a pair of clerks who don’t even glance up from their spell-papers. Bastards probably couldn’t conjure a flame without a dozen assistants. Not that Lorcan is one to talk. He doesn’t have a single magical bone in his body.

  And that’s exactly how he likes it.

  He trusts steel, walls, and people who don’t pretend the gods love them more than anyone else.

  A bribed scribe waves him through the gates. Lorcan gives the man a nod, then heads down the cool stone hall toward the restricted annex. He’d paid his way into a stack of sealed reconnaissance reports, early fieldwork from the Chaos Zone, written decades before the current expansion began. The commander hopes there might be patterns. A thread of sense in the madness.

  The Wendwoods come up more than once, often in the same breath as the Chaos Zone. Always vague and contradictory. One log claimed the forest swallowed sound; another, that it whispered names at night. More than one team wrote about the dead zones - no animals, no birdsong. One spoke of trees bleeding clear sap that burned like fire. Gods and ghosts, the scribes called it. Lorcan called it lazy cataloging.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He marks the pages anyway.

  The commander wouldn’t dismiss it so easily. He believed if something in the Wendwoods mirrored the Chaos Zone; twisted magic, veil fractures, whatever name you gave it; it might also hold the key to stopping it or controlling it.

  A source like that couldn’t be ignored.

  Harness it, and they might have a weapon powerful enough to turn the tide. Understand it, and maybe they’d find a cure for what was spreading across the eastern provinces.

  Or at the very least, a name to curse when everything burned.

  Lorcan has already spent hours in a fruitless search. Notes taken. Pages flipped. If there’s a hidden meaning in all this, he is not the one to find it.

  What they need before returning isn’t just information and funding. Fighters would be better. What they really need is something the capital hoards like treasure: their precious mages.

  They sit on power like a child clutching a favorite toy, refusing to share, even if it could save lives. The commander came to pry that magic loose with his silver tongue and quick wit.

  Gods help him.

  After a day of reading faded logs about forgotten places and half-remembered myths, Lorcan’s eyes feel gritty, his hand stiff from holding the lead, his head swimming with ancient runes. He’s done all he can for the day. The light in the Archive is dimming, which means the commander’s meeting is probably over.

  -

  The commander’s quarters are technically luxurious.

  Velvet drapes, thick enough to swallow sound. A hearth carved with old runes, inlaid with marble. The furniture is real hardwood, old and solid, with clean joins and ornate metalwork on the drawer handles. One of the couches is upholstered in red silk so vibrant it looks like spilled wine.

  And yet, the place feels half-forgotten. Like wealth tossed into a room and left to gather dust.

  Maps blanket the low table, some ink-stained and crumpled, others still pinned with markers. A leather satchel slumps open beside the hearth, dirty clothes thrown carelessly on top. Boots sit near the open balcony door, one caked in dried mud. Books lie open and face-down on the floor, in the chairs, across the couches.

  And not a single servant or slave in sight.

  The commander never lets them in his rooms. Says he doesn’t like strangers touching his things. Truthfully, he despises the use of slaves in the capital. Not that he’d say so aloud where someone could overhear.

  Lorcan steps inside and shuts the door behind him.

  The commander doesn’t look up right away. He stands at the window, coat off, sleeves rolled up past the elbows. The fading light casts his silhouette long across the room.

  Rhalis Veyloran, the commander, is in his mid-thirties, built broad through the shoulders, with a solid frame. He has the kind of build that could swing a blade if needed, though Lorcan knew he preferred not to. Magic came easier. So did words.

  He turns at the sound of Lorcan’s step. His expression flickers. Then comes the mask, that effortless, cool facade he wears for nearly everyone. His eyes take in the ink-smudged fingers, the dust on Lorcan’s collar.

  “You look like hell,” he says.

  “So do your apartments,” Lorcan replies.

  A tired smile ghosts across the commander’s mouth. He gestures to the stack of reports in Lorcan’s hands.

  “Anything new?”

  “Nothing I find helpful.” Lorcan drops the folder beside the maps. “A village near the southwestern end of Velmora claims to have cured a cursed church. A lot of religious hearsay. Plenty of vague mentionings of the Wendwoods.”

  The commander rakes a hand through his hair and sits on the arm of the couch.

  “Anything from the last wave of search teams?”

  “Very little,” Lorcan says. “A few young ones on the outskirts—no training, afraid of their own magic. We’ll bring them in. Train them.”

  The commander nods.

  “The last I heard of Iven’s team, they were looking into the Wendwoods,” Lorcan adds. “Still chasing that myth near Hollowmere.”

  The commander’s mouth pulls into a one-sided frown.

  “I remember. Southern mountain posts turned up nothing, then?” He sighs; no answer needed. “Maybe they’ll have better luck with locals.”

  “Luck,” Lorcan says dryly, “is in short supply these days.”

  The commander doesn’t argue. He stands and paces a few steps, then turns back.

  “We’re at war with Calveth. The Chaos Zone is swallowing farmland by the mile. Half our mages are dead, and the other half are spread so thin they may as well not exist.” He exhales hard through his nose. “And every noble bastard thinks their house mage is too precious to risk.”

  Lorcan doesn’t interrupt. The anger is sharp, but familiar.

  “We can’t fight on three fronts,” the commander goes on, voice low. “Not with half-trained students and suicidal-priests playing at god. We need real strength.”

  Lorcan crosses to the map table and studies the markers. The parchment is worn soft at the edges. Ink has bled into the rivers. Velmora looks smaller than it used to.

  “We’ll need to move soon,” the commander says. “I’m pressing all I can out of the court. If the Zone expands - ”

  “If the mages don’t come,” Lorcan finishes, “we go without them.”

  The commander looks at him. Tired eyes. Sharp mind. The kind of man who still cares, for the country, yes, but more importantly, for its people. He knows what will happen if the nobles refuse to play nice.

  “Yes,” he says, quieter now. “Then we go.”