Chapter 66

  Interlude: The 3 Stars Crown

  I remembered someone calling my name.

  "Mìriel!"

  I remembered how that voice would make me happy, every time I heard it. I remembered how it was like seeing the sun rising on Eleniol, engulfing the white of the city with soft light.

  "Why are you here? Your cousins are waiting for you."

  I remembered the sweetness and understanding that accompanied those words.

  "I don't think they like me... They think I'm strange..."

  I was just a child, at the time. Not that now I am any better. But even a child could sense the fearful glances, the derisive looks that judged and mocked.

  "Nonsense! They're just eager to get to know you better. Your father and mother expect a lot from you. You know that."

  I knew that. Oh, how I knew that. One of the princesses of Sorsilia. What could I have become? A diplomat? A bride for some prince in a faraway kingdom? Or just a pretty face for the court? Maybe... Maybe I could have even been the new empress!

  Either way, it was impossible to escape my place on the chessboard.

  And that man, that man who sat at the top of everything, knew it better than anyone else. But unlike the others, he saw nothing in me other than who I was. He didn't expect anything more than what I was, what I really was.

  "Grandfather... I'm scared..."

  I was always scared. Everything scared me. The night with its darkness. The cold that penetrated my bones. The stars in the sky, watching from afar. Sorsilia was the Empire of Stars, and the night was our domain.

  It was the domain of the aasimar, the evening princes. Ours were the stars, since our forefather reclaimed them. Whenever I looked up at the starry sky and asked for my wishes to be granted, they were not unheard.

  "I understand. I too am very afraid. I fear for the empire. I fear for my subjects and..." At that point, he squeezed my cheeks as he had done since I was a baby, with that lightness and softness that distinguished him. "I fear for you. This does not cause me any sorrow. Fear shows us that we are alive. It is a warning against arrogance. If we were not afraid, we would be nothing more than beasts. But our intellect, our reason, tells us to be afraid because this will drive us to protect the things we care about. If you are afraid, it means that you care about something. Something you don't want to lose."

  Phalazon Malakar the Third was the kind of man who spoke to children with the same tone, wisdom, and affability with which he spoke to adults, emissaries, and every man or woman who caught his attention. For him, there were no differences, neither dictated by age nor by other conditions.

  He treated me like an adult, never doubting for a second that I was capable of understanding, and I loved him for that.

  I love him for that.

  His gray skin, typical of the aasimar, was full of small scars, signs of a life spent on the battlefield, hard and shiny like adamantium. His hair was as white as every structure in the capital, long and tousled, held together in a long braid. But it was his eyes that spoke, inviting you to confide in him. Eyes that sparkled like pieces of silver, purer than any gem and much more sincere.

  "I don't want you to be afraid for me!" I couldn't bear that someone like him could feel such a low sentiment for someone as incapable as me.

  It was wrong.

  He leaned close to me, his wing feathers closing around me in a long embrace. Every aasimar had something unique, a symbol of the divine heritage of the first emperor and founder of the Pharazon dynasty.

  Among my cousins, among the princes of the empire, there were those endowed with titanic dimensions that rivaled the giants of the north, those with four arms, and those with eyes in the back of their heads. My grandfather's mark was his wings, beautiful griffon wings that allowed him to vibrate in the air without the aid of magic.

  It was the same gift received by the first of the aasimar, when more than four hundred years ago he started our lineage by uniting with the human and elven women of these lands.

  I, on the other hand, had no gifts. That imperfection was my curse, the abyss where my inadequacy found refuge.

  "Come with me," he said, before leading me into a room in the palace. "Let me show you something."

  We headed towards the throne room, which, contrary to what anyone might imagine, was little more than a simple bedroom, devoid of any signs of decay or other superfluous items.

  There was only a throne, a small, modest seat, and a display case next to it. But inside the display case...

  "That's..."

  It was the first time I had seen it, but not the first time I had heard of it. In the Empire of Sorsilia, everyone knew about the crown of three stars.

  What made an empire such? Some claimed it was the people who lived there, others the natural or artificial borders. Still others pointed to cosmopolia, the differences between cultures that intersected and intertwined in a larger design.

  All this may have been true elsewhere. But in Sorsilia, the empire meant only one thing: that crown. As long as the three diamonds set within it continued to shine, we would continue to prosper.

  "Beautiful, isn't it?"

  There were no guards or anyone else watching. The immense magical power that emanated from it was itself a warning, an invitation not to sink into wickedness.

  I heard the crown speak to me, as if it wanted me to wear it. I recoiled, frightened by its call.

  I had heard the stories, and I had felt its power. It was one thing to read and imagine, but it was quite another to experience that storm-like sensation, a river that could not be stopped, a world that unfolded just by wearing it.

  If I had placed it on my head at that moment, would I have remained a child? Or would Mìriel have become someone else?

  It didn't take long to find out…

  "Did you take it? Did you put it on your head?"

  The voice that interrupted my story was full of curiosity. The masked girl in front of me didn't know why she asked me that question, and she showed hesitation before approaching me.

  "Why do you ask when you already know the answer?"

  The crown was on my head, and with it the weight it carried. Although I could not see or observe them, the three diamonds shone so brightly that they turned the dark room into a riot of colors and lights.

  The masked girl uncovered her face, revealing her childlike features; a rainbow-like light emanated from her irises. She paid no attention to the four women lying unconscious near her, nor to the wolf standing behind her, who looked at me warily.

  "Continue your story," she said.

  The wolf tried to silence her. "Don't listen to her. She's the one you've been looking for. The Witch King!"

  That name had now become mine, and with it, the girl had become a shadow, a specter of what she once was.

  "Be quiet."

  The girl—the child?—turned and crystals shot out of her palms, striking the wolf, who became a man as he dodged them. Man, wolf, or monster, his features grew, and his jaws, claws, and body grew until they tore apart the uniform he wore, until he became the monster that populated my nightmares.

  We had met before.

  "Mairon..." I uttered that name like a curse, and the wolf approached me, opening its mouth to show me the abyss hidden inside.

  "Give me the crown, girl. Aren't you afraid?"

  The wretched wraiths I invoked grazed him, unable to truly hurt his being. In front of him, I was just a defenseless child.

  "I promise we'll restore everything to the way it was," he continued, dispelling all my spells, tearing apart the very fabric of the darkness from which he was born, of which he was the architect. "The Golden King is waiting for you. Don't you want to embrace your family again?"

  I turned around and saw my grandfather sitting on the throne, staring into space. His mummified body, his sanity gone and the last spark of consciousness buried in a shell that knew neither peace nor torment; only the oblivion of a lifeless existence.

  An existence I refused to abandon, but which I continued to cling to stubbornly, possessed by a grotesque desire to preserve a past that was now dead.

  "You're lying... Nothing can bring them back as they were..."

  The capital of death where I was buried was supposed to be atonement for my sin.

  "Sin? You have committed no sins, child..." The wolf's voice was tempting, the mother of a relief I craved so much, that I wanted to embrace so much.

  His lies were the comfort I sought.

  "Let her continue the story, Mairon," the girl interrupted him. "I want to hear how it ends."

  "So be it…"

  I cleared my throat, heedless of the burning sensation.

  In this world, magic is the source of everything. If there were no war, if there were no conflict, there would be no need for military power or weapons.

  But even in such a paradise, hunger would exist, and with it disease, envy, and contempt. Magic is indifferent to all this; it performs miracles not because it is driven by resentment, but because we try to harness the spirit of the world in forms unknown to us.

  With it, we weave existence like tailors who only become aware of the garment they are sewing when it is complete, who admire the patterns of nature, its grandeur and beauty in forms that we make small, because their greatness would be too much to bear.

  In Sorsilia, no magic was comparable to that recorded in the chronicles of the first emperor. More than magic, they were called prodigies, far from any logic, harbingers of light.

  "An exceptional talent!"

  Like all princes and princesses of the empire, my education included training in the arts. My parents had received the upbringing, as had my uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives.

  No one was comparable to me. Even if I had not had the other gifts of the assimars, my skill in the field of enchantment was unmatched.

  "She has just entered adolescence and is already capable of casting third-tier spells! Her resistance to charm, poison, and illusion spells is equally remarkable! We are already preparing lessons to introduce the fourth tier. At this rate, we will have a fifth-tier spellcaster after years without one!"

  My tutors sung praise, while my grandfather listened in silence, along with my parents and the rest of my family. What had once been contempt and indifference had now become something more.

  Envy.

  "Could she have been blessed by the stars?" My grandfather finally asked.

  Blessed by the stars. That was the name given to those who came close to the power of the first emperor. In the long history of the Empire, such descendants could be counted on the fingers of one hand, but their achievements were not so few.

  "My lord, it could really be so! The chronicles are uncertain about the signs that herald the awakening of the blood, but they agree on one thing: from an early age, the talent they display is unmatched! She could be the ultimate weapon against the hated giants! We could wipe the devil worshippers from our lands! We could sit at the negotiating table with the Commonwealth from a more favorable position..."

  All those political implications left me breathless. Me? Me, the chosen one? How absurd.

  My grandfather listened to all these plans, nodding slightly, the crown remaining motionless on his head.

  Whenever he wore it, it was as if another presence took hold of him. Or perhaps it was just my imagination, unable to accept that the loving figure who spoiled me so ardently was also the pillar on which millions of lives depended.

  "For now, Mìriel will continue with her studies, without pressure," he decreed after a long period of consideration. "There will be time to make plans for the future."

  The tutor left after saying his goodbyes, but the throne room remained crowded with people.

  No one dared to speak a word, in wait for someone else to break the silence.

  As anxiety and worry grew, it was only one voice that dispelled the gloomy atmosphere.

  "My lord, if my daughter has truly received the blessing of the stars, there will be much to discuss."

  My father. The father who had given me love, but never in excess, tempering it with disappointment at my shortcomings, now claimed a right that had never been so strong.

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  The right to the throne.

  For an emperor must have the ability to protect the people, and who better than the parent of the most capable future sorcerer? Everything took its place in that drawing, as if the hand that traced it had remained steady since it was first placed on the paper.

  Needless to say, voices of discontent rose in a single chorus.

  "The girl has not yet been proclaimed blessed!"

  "The laws of succession cannot be so easily overridden!"

  "Stay in your place, brother!"

  Building the future on what could have been a lie did not surprise me. It was an accepted practice in the art of government, and even I could understand that at the time.

  However, almost driven by the benevolence of that unexpected fortune, I retreated to a dark corner, wishing I were invisible to those covetous glances, deaf to those cries that wanted to destroy my talent with contempt.

  Who had I been until then? Nothing more than a dot among many, whose possibilities were few and already chosen, even before I was given the chance.

  That power opened new doors for me, but did it give me anything else to choose from? A place to call my own in this court?

  "My brothers and sisters," my father spoke again only at the end, when spirits had begun to lose their fire under my grandfather's judicious gaze. "This empire was not founded by laws, which merely support its structure. This empire did not survive on envy or tradition. This empire was forged in the blood shed by the first emperor, and it has prospered through the deeds of those who have been blessed. We use laws to hide from a world that frightens us, that leaves us dismayed by its cruelty. I ask you... When war comes, will the laws save us? When the Commonwealth wants to expand its horizons, will our law prevail? Or theirs? The law is a tool, and as such must be bent to reason. Reason demands a sacrifice, an emperor who knows how to defend what he calls an empire, and who can destroy all internal dangers with a single blow. Those who hide in the depths of our homes..." And here he paused, glancing at each of his brothers in turn. "And those who are arrogant enough to show themselves in the light of day!"

  In the future, there were other discussions, other struggles to gain power. I remained unaware of many of these, because it had never been my concern.

  But looking back, I knew that that was the exact moment when my grandfather's designated heir was chosen, in defiance of every law and tradition that could have said otherwise.

  And it was all thanks to me. Thanks to me, my father took the name Pharazon IV and led us to greatness.

  "Did you love your father?" The girl's question was not meant to upset me.

  "In a way... He was the one I clung to when I shed my first blood. And he was the one who ordered me to exterminate the giants of the north, to mow down the lives of my cousins who were plotting against us."

  The story of each of us is endless.

  We delude ourselves that the individual moments that make it up are a flow, a succession of events. Some, more than others, mark our past and influence our future decisions, giving us valuable advice like trusted counselors.

  When my father took the crown and assumed the throne, I was already at his side as his sword, ready to do his bidding.

  Was that the moment that marked my future?

  My magical abilities had awakened, and with them my usefulness. The feats I accomplished... were many.

  The first time I killed a living creature, I vomited.

  One of my father's cousins, an uncle I had never even seen before, except on a few rare occasions, had gathered minor nobles to support his weak claims.

  I entered his palace at night and set it on fire... It was easy. Too easy. Of course, there were guards patrolling the estate. Of course, there were magic casters who had set up defenses and barriers. Of course, there were other innocent people inside...

  It didn't matter.

  I hadn't left any traces behind me. I couldn't smell the scent of burning flesh, nor could I hear the desperate screams.

  I could only admire from afar the fire rising into the sky, the smoke covering the night, and stare intently at the fireworks display, while my guts twisted and I entered adulthood with a bang.

  It was only my wild imagination that filled those empty spaces, allowing my heart to harden and feeling an unexpected joy in doing my job.

  My lips, still dirty from the vomit, couldn't help but smile.

  "Well done, Mìriel!" That was all I wanted to hear. My parents showered me with love for each of my endeavors. That love I had always dreamed of, that now was more concrete than every one of my longed for aspirations. "There's another job for you..."

  "I will do it!" My enthusiasm was always accompanied by a desire for glory, a mad urge to prove who I was.

  And every new job was a way to achieve the coveted result, to make the stars recognize my worth.

  As my abilities grew more powerful, so did our enemies. Nobility that had to be made to disappear in silence, then monsters that attacked the most remote areas of our lands, and finally the giants of the clouds that descended from the mountains, the devil worshippers who hid in our homes.

  Maybe I shouldn't have let myself get carried away? I could see it in the way the intruder looked at me. Could she have pity on me, if it would make her feel better. Could she feel compassion for the evil I have done, if it would make her sleep better.

  She wouldn't be the only one, and she wouldn't be the first.

  "My dear, you have become strong. But you must be careful! Magic can save you, but it can also consume you..."

  My grandfather's warning grew more intense. Even after handing over the crown to his son, he remained very involved in palace affairs. Did he know what I was doing? Or was he the one behind it all?

  "Then let me be consumed… Mìriel has long been gone, grandfather."

  Was there a difference between the person wielding the knife and the knife itself? If someone fell dead from being stabbed, looking for someone to blame was just a way to alleviate the consequences.

  "The greater good requires sacrifice... Don't let yourself become the sacrifice for your ideals."

  To the outside world, I was still one of many imperial princesses, but to a few members of my family, I was now something more. I didn't even know why I kept pretending. I wanted to tear Mìriel away from me, to tear apart the image that others had of me and, above all, the image I had created of myself.

  But I was terrified of what I might find underneath. Of the nothingness that awaited me.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  One day, we were standing on the Dragon's Den. This was the name given to one of the highest parts of the imperial palace, which was nothing more than an open terrace, as vast as it was empty.

  An ancient pact had been signed right at the top of that place, which at the time was nothing more than a worthless rock, a snow-covered mountain like many others. Now the same stone had been used as material for building and construction.

  "Maybe the dragon will come today..."

  The breeze blew over us, but no one came. In that nest where there was nothing, we waited for someone who would never arrive.

  "There's no dragon, grandpa."

  It was a winter morning, and it was very cold. Not that I felt it much, because even my skin and my body were different from others. More resistant, stronger.

  "He'll come. Have faith... The dragon lord promised us he'd come back. Why would he break his promise?"

  "Because promises are made to be broken?"

  Grandpa listened to me, but said nothing, deciding to change the subject. In his tired eyes, there were still those diamonds that showed that precious shine.

  "I hear you're dabbling in necromancy?"

  "My studies are varied, but the arcane arts are those in which I excel. The creation of the undead is only one part of them. I have found ghosts particularly suited as spies... Difficult to detect, with abilities that make them ideal for infiltrating any place."

  And their presence went completely unnoticed. Wraiths, ghosts, specters... Each of those creatures, just like me, performed the tasks for which they were conceived, and nothing else. In popular belief, they represented regrets, actions that had not been completed, the last remnants of a will attached to an unattainable desire.

  For me, they were just disposable tools.

  "Aasimars are children of the sky. We are made to fly, to soar high."

  And me? What was I made for? To kill? What was the point of the power I had been given, if not to annihilate armies, eliminate competitors, study magic?

  Mìriel was nothing more than that little girl hiding, afraid of the world, waiting for her grandfather to find her.

  It was on that day that I realized he had never succeeded, no matter how much I had deluded myself into believing otherwise. Was that reason enough to condemn him? How I wished I could be sure of what to do.

  I was living a paradox that mirrored my own, in which the girl who wanted to be forgiven left behind her a chasm of choices never made heading toward a hell of her own making.

  "I will not stop chasing ghosts. What is the crown of three stars if not the ghost of a time now lost? The Empire will fall. The Commonwealth is too powerful. Even I alone cannot save it."

  I regretted that statement almost immediately. The fact that he didn't give it any importance made me feel even more worthless. The old emperor continued to gaze at the sky, perhaps hoping that an old friend would return to find him, so they could talk about old times together.

  "An emissary will arrive at court soon... Watch him closely. If you believe our house is doomed, I have only one request. Watch him until the end, this is the last plea of an old man in his twilight years."

  With my own hands, I had killed some of his sons and grandsons. I had ruined his daughters and granddaughters, condemning them to a life of misery without mercy.

  And all of this for my satisfaction. It was me. It was only me that mattered.

  I had spat my resentment in his face, and he had not even wiped it away. I had pronounced a sentence of condemnation on what he called home, putting an end to any faint hope he might have had.

  And that wasn't enough for him to contempt me.

  "I will do everything you tell me. I will grant your every unreasonable request."

  What else could I do?

  "If Sorsilia is a lost cause, run away. Live, Mìriel... Live, for once. For yourself, and for no one else."

  How I wished I had done so.

  "That was our first meeting," the wolf said to me, circling around me, making his presence felt in the darkness. "You were so young back then."

  "While you were the same as you are now."

  Mairon was handsome when he first appeared at our court. Covered in precious cloth and perfumed oils, with medals of valor on his chest and a doublet as dark as night, the attendant of the Lord Regent dazzled as a small sun.

  As an emissary of the Commonwealth, the wolfman was treated with every honor and privilege, in the hope that this would be enough to make him docile, an ally to be won over rather than an enemy to be wary of.

  "It was my right!" Exclaimed the wolf. "Sorsilia was still standing thanks to our generosity."

  He wasn't talking about the Commonwealth, nor about the Lord Regent.

  "Yet you went further than allowed, that time..." I replied, without showing fear. "That time, you didn't come alone."

  Next to him stood a humanoid covered in rags, a rusty metal mask covering his face.

  "What kind of joke is this? Does the Commonwealth send jesters before this very court?" My father thundered. Mairon remained silent, letting the stranger speak for him.

  It was unusual, to say the least, for a stranger to enter the imperial palace so easily. But no one had dared to check that unknown guest… No one had stopped him from entering the royal court. Why so? It was so obvious, in hindsight.

  It's not like no one had tried to. It's simply that they couldn't.

  "Hush!" The voice that followed was a metallic rumble that drowned out every other sound. "I am no jester, emperor of nothing," when the stranger spoke, everyone fell silent. "I am your king. Kneel. All of you."

  The guards on duty did not dare to move, nor did they react to this offense. Instead, they obeyed the order, as it had been imparted by their liege himself.

  And with them, everyone present followed soon.

  The great generals of the empire, the ministers, the ladies of the court, each of those people overflowing with power bowed their heads first, then the rest of their bodies.

  It was not the aid of some magical instrument, even though I sensed an immeasurable power beneath those rags that covered him, nor some special ability or spell.

  It was simply the primal nature of an ancient call, a vow we had forgotten we had underwritten with something more precious than blood, and which now demanded complete self-sacrifice. The simple and pure terror of a vast and immeasurable void, which would have swallowed us up if we had not obeyed it.

  Only my father and I remained in our places. The crown of three stars shone as it had never done before, nor as it would ever do again, as if the stranger were calling it to him.

  "Who are you?" my father asked, trying, failing, to remain composed. The Emperor of Sorsilia was little more than a puppet for something greater, and his shaking on that seat that made him believe he was on the top of the world did not change the harsh reality: the strings that controlled him were moved by others, while his view was the one of the great unwashed.

  "Silence!"

  I had compared my father's voice to thunder. From the mask, however, came only a whisper, a faint thread of voice carried by the wind, that sewed obedience together with terror. This was because he did not need grandiose methods to appear imposing. He did not have to project an idea if he could convey it simply by existing.

  "You don't need grand gestures to command respect. If you have power, displaying it will be the last thing you need to do." So warned the great lord of the cloud giants, before I reduced him to ashes to be scattered over his beloved mountains.

  "Individual military prowess is not everything... No man alone can overthrow a nation..." So my cousin Aramiel used to reiterate when he tried to rebel, before I plunged him and his army of rebels into a chasm.

  But all my actions had been carried out under the plan of one man, who now had fear to be his only advisor.

  This time, my father found himself forced to wait. Even though he didn't give me any signs, I understood instantly that he wanted me to get rid of the intruder he had welcomed among us, to remedy the mistake he had made.

  I didn't do it.

  "Wise child," recognized the masked man.

  Humanoids resemble each other, but he was different from any other I had ever met. There was no exposed skin, so it was impossible to trace his origin to any specific part of the world. He was of average build, so he was certainly not a dwarf, but he was not as slender as an elf, nor as corpulent as a human.

  He had nothing divine about him like an assimar.

  So who was he?

  "He was the Golden King," Mairon replied. "He told you so even then."

  Yes, he did. The Golden King.

  "Silence is golden, child…"

  And so I remained quiet, letting him speak.

  "We are the same, you and I. Just like Mairon. Just like the Lord Regent. Just like all those who serve me. The last heirs of beings that the world has learned to revere and hate."

  I already knew the legends of the players, of the first emperor and the wars of greed, and the fall of the dragon lords. Nothing he said was new to my ears, yet it sounded full of a depth that I could not fully grasp.

  "..."

  I knew he was offering me more than I had ever been offered before. My sorcerer's instincts went wild at the possibility of immersing my mind in those arcane secrets, forbidden and ignored even by the most erudite.

  Unconsciously, perhaps, I had already accepted.

  "The Three Star Crown… And you… Both belong to me, now."

  I approached my father, who stood frozen, unable to move. In his silence, the disappointment he felt for me at that moment was exhilarating. It was then that I understood how hard I had fought, how much I had spilled blood—metaphorically speaking.

  I tore the crown from his head, without him being able to do anything to stop me. I painted on a canvas without borders, leaving fingerprints encrusted with scarlet paint. His head fell from its neck as that beautiful jewel passed into my hands. That gesture was my first act of autonomy.

  For the first time, Mìriel had cut the umbilical cord and been reborn under the stars.

  "Give it to me."

  "..."

  "Give it to me."

  "..."

  "Give it to me!"

  In the end, a tyrant could do nothing but bark orders. The beggar king was left to stew in my silence, the same silence he had called golden.

  I placed the crown on my head. I prepared to cast the spells, ready to fight for the first in my life for myself.

  The Golden King didn't give me that last satisfaction either.

  "This is your choice, then. So be it. Remember, the dragon is coming. The flying city is where we will meet again. Where your peers, your true family, awaits you."

  He and Mairon left, leaving me there alone, in the midst of everyone.

  The entire court had watched what had just happened with bated breath, waiting only for my signal before they could resume their lives. How long did I remain motionless? I'm not sure, but I think it was hours, because we had gone from early afternoon to dusk, to the onset of evening.

  I still had the bloody crown smeared across my hair and face, while my whole soul tried to make sense of the madness that had occurred. In the end, all my actions had led to that result, but I felt nothing but relief.

  "And that's when it happened?"

  The masked girl approached me. There was a kind of understanding in her. She had helped her four companions to their feet, waiting for my answer.

  "I ran to my grandfather. I knew that the Golden King had not lied. The dragon was finally coming... And when the dragon arrived, that was when it happened. That this became the city of the dead."

  I was running towards the top of the building, where I knew I would find my grandfather.

  How can I describe it? There was an earthquake, and a noise like the sky shattering into a million pieces. I staggered from the tremor that shook everything around me; a blinding light shattered every window—stained glass splintered into fragments that rained down upon the ground. But this was only the prelude.

  A deep rumble echoed in the distance, the vestige of a primordial roar—the last remnant of a legend long since passed. Then the roar ceased, replaced by a malevolent silence. That silence heralded something dreadful, the kind that in mere seconds makes you feel as though you are sinking into an infinite sea.

  I closed my eyes—or rather, I was forced to close them—before finding myself hurled into another place, though still within that cursed stairwell. Before me stood five columns, each a different color, shimmering with a beauty so immense it stole the breath from my lungs. A tremor coursed through me to my fingertips, as every spell I had ever learned vanished from my mind.

  I should have destroyed those columns—or at least approached them—while that infernal ritual set the capital ablaze. The crimson sunset was consumed by the darkness of night, and as I leaned out the window, I saw three stars shining faintly in the distance, casting a soft, familiar glow.

  I reached the summit just as the columns faded away, lost to a new horizon that foretold only chaos and horror. There, I saw my grandfather waiting for me.

  Pharazon The Third stood alone, no longer among the living. In his place remained a rotting, deathless creature.

  Still, I embraced him.

  At first, he tried to bite me, and then to tear the crown from my head, as though drawn to it more powerfully than he ever was in life. I was forced to restrain him. I brought him down with me, toward the throne room.

  His fate, I soon realized, had been shared by all. At first, I believed the phenomenon had afflicted only the inhabitants of the palace, but it did not take long to understand: the old capital had become a city of death.

  "And what did you do then?" Asked the masked girl.

  "I took everything that was mine," I replied. "That was the day the Witch King was born anew, from Mìriel's ashes."

  "And what will you do now?" Asked the wolf.

  Mairon too wanted to know that answer, and which path I would choose.

  "..."

  I gave them my answer.

  Beta readers: hackslashbash, whostolemytea?

  Greetings, it has been long.

  I think it could be interesting to share some creative process behind this chapter and the current arcs.

  At the start Mìriel and Keno's story was meant to be much longer than this simple interlude… But the more I tried to expand the story, the more I understood that it wasn't meant to be this long.

  As some of you could have guessed, Sorsilia and the whole Mìriel/Mairon conflict was inspired by Tolkien's work, in particular from me one day reading that whacky theory that the Nazgul Lord was no other than Tar-Mìriel, last queen of Numenor.

  The theory doesn't really make sense, but I found it cool, so I wanted to homage it.

  Anyway, in the end, what was meant to be half-point of Keno and Mìriel story-arcs ended up only as the start. You will see them both again in the next arc, I assure you.

  Stephen King used to say that a good writer has to 'kill his children' and lately I realize how true these words were.

  At the start, the whole Draconic Kingdom arc was meant to be a lot longer, with Antilene having to deal not only with beastmen/undead but also the political landscape of Draudillon's court. While some elements of it remain, many were just cut.

  Why?

  Writing about an overpowered character… It's extremely difficult. While Antilene isn't the walking cheat that is Ainz/Nazarick, she pretty much stomps 99% of characters and situations of the new world without breaking too much of a sweat.

  Of course, there are threats for her, and they will soon be revealed after so much teasing… But are they enough to make a good story? Just a good fight with stakes?

  While the story was never meant to be too much about battles, there is only too much I can write about armies and people in despair/awe or the inner conflict about her relationship with her parents before things just becoming… Stale.

  If in the Cities State Arcs it was showed that her might alone isn't enough when dealing with complex plot of people smarter than her, and challenged her beliefs about humans and non-humans coexistence, it's also true that being extremely overpowered compared to everyone else just puts all these plots in the end will go her way, because in both a meta and not meta sense, she is meant to win.

  Which returns to my starting point, writing overpowered characters… Isn't easy.

  The psychological element becomes essential, because it is the inner struggle that should prove to be as exciting as the outer one.

  If I think of stories that tried to handle it, One-Punch Man and the original Overlord are the first that came to my mind. In my opinion, though, both of them failed spectacularly at it in the end.

  Why?

  Because many authors perceive internal conflict as insufficient to advance the story, and therefore continue to create external conflicts that drive the plot forward.

  But if the protagonist is invincible, if the author prevents them from experiencing failure, how could this be satisfying?

  Writing an overlord fanfic, these last words probably show a lot of hypocrisy. In a broader sense, it's probably a dilemma that every fanfic writer gets to experience at least once during their creative process.

  I am writing this story because I liked the original so much? Or because I despised it so much that I thought, with a lot of arrogance, that I could do better? Or is it a mix of both?

  Terry Pratchett quote on Tolkien illustrates the situation clearly, I think:

  J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it's big and up close. Sometimes it's a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it's not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji."

  I guess that for every fanfic, the original work takes the role that Tolkien cast as a shadow for fantasy as a whole.

  So, returning to the original topic of this musing: what makes a story with an overpowered protagonist good? That's what I'm wondering about. And that's what pushes me more and more to rethink this story in a different way, almost as if it were Frankenstein's famous monster, modeled with various different parts, various styles that change in search of a perfection that perhaps doesn't even exist.

  After killing my children, and getting aware of the shadow that looms over this story, I realize that, in the end, this is Antilene's tale.

  The tale of a girl that, more than anything, wanted her mother to love her.

  Once I reduced it to this simple statement, I think I understood what I needed to do to give it a perfect conclusion.

  Once the Draconic Kingdom's arc will be over the last two arcs (even if maybe it's more honest to talk about just a giant arc) will start and all the seeds that had been planted since the start will fully bloom and reach their conclusion.

  There is still a quite long way until the conclusion.

  For everyone who has stuck until this point, for everyone who will continue reading it in the future, thank you so much.