POV: The Crow
Night hung like funeral cloth over the mountains.
A single crow sliced through the mist-choked sky, wings stretched wide as shadows rippled beneath him. Far below, the Arthorian capital slumbered uneasily in its bed of stone and steel. Even now past the eleventh bell its veins pulsed with candlelight and arcane glow.
Chimneys bled thin trails of smoke into the wind. Gaslamps flickered like weary stars across cobbled boulevards. Great towers spiraled upward from the bones of the Whispering Hollow Mountains, their black glass domes and copper arches licked silver by moonlight.
He circled once.
His eyes, older than men might guess, caught the subtle shifts of the city's breath: the hiss of steam from factory vents; the patrol-trot of constables in brass-buttoned coats; the muffled laughter of nobles behind iron-gated manors; and beneath it all, the quiet murmur of things unsaid.
Thravagrad so the capital was called. Heart of the Arthorian Kingdom. Cold. Regal. Restless.
The crow banked left, rising on a gust of mountain wind. His feathers shimmered faintly, catching a glint of a faint light.
He flew eastward, toward the jagged edge of the outer capital walls where citadel spires pierced the sky like broken teeth and massive, scarred, and ringed with iron ballistae and guard towers. From here, Thravagrad bled into the foothills, where fortress-towns and watchposts marked the kingdom's reach like tattoos carved in stone.
And still he flew.
Below him, fortress cities passed like scenes in a memory:
—Ironmarsh, ringed by deep moats and stone-bound bridges.
—Dunnor's Gate, with its perpetual torchlights and giant walls guarding the valley.
—Eldfast, perched on a ridgeline, half-devoured by ivy and time.
All bastions of Arthorian pride. All gripped in silence.
The crow did not stop he flew eastward.
Below him now: fortress-towns tucked into the cliffs like brooding sentinels. The bastions of Caer Dunley, Thornbridge, and Old Maerloch blinked with lantern-light as garrison bells rang the changing of the watch. Roads like silver veins wound through valleys where caravans slept beside their fires. The crow wheeled, ever onward.
He crossed the borderlands where merchant wagons crawled like ants by day and vanished by night. Beyond lay the open lands untamed valleys veiled in morning frost, river-thickets curling like ink, and long-forgotten shrines leaning into the dark.
Then came the city-states each a law unto itself.
He flew above Caltridge, where the lights never went out and the markets never closed. Over Vel Moraine, a independent trading hub for many. He dodged a group of birds above Grayharrow, where chimneys outnumbered trees. Ettelfell, where a lonely tower shone like a lantern amid wild, empty grasslands. There were no borders here, only pride and coin and blood where necessary.
The scent of salt touched his beak.
The air thickened with ocean mist and gull cries. The Sea of Storms stretched out before him, endless and roiling dark as ink, vast as a kingdom drowned. Ships moved in the harbor below like beetles, each marked with strange flags and glowing runes. Storm lanterns danced atop their masts.
He had reached his destination.
Blackharbor.
A city that refused to sleep.
The crow glided over slate rooftops, weaving between chimneys and windvanes. The streets were alive with all manner of folk humans, demi-bloods, horned faunasian traders, stout caravaneers. The scent of spiced mead, burnt coal, and salt pork filled the air.
He passed windows aglow with warmth. Listened:
"...three adventuring parties gone missin' in less than a fortnight. All sniffin' round that awakened dungeon north of Maelditch..."
"...bah, it ain't from kingdoms. Them sails bore no symbols. Pirate ships, mark me. From deeper waters than we should speak of..."
"...ain't no king here, and I'll fight any bugger says otherwise including you. Blackharbor answers to coin, not a bloody crown..."
The words blended. Low Englodian, thick with salt and soot and truth. This city had no love for thrones nor laws, only survival.
He finally reached the Cracked Lantern Inn, a modest three-story roadhouse of black timber and stained glass, nestled in the Wharf Quarter's labyrinth of alleys.
His wings slowed. He perched lightly on the edge of a fog-streaked window, tapping twice with his beak.
Inside, candlelight flickered across a worn desk, a journal, and a man draped in a weather-stained cloak of dark wool and stitched shadow.
The crow tapped again.
The man looked up.
His eyes were tired, but not old. He set his quill down with deliberate slowness.
"Late again," he said, voice low and dry. "You better have seen something useful."
The crow cocked its head and blinked.
POV: The Cloaked Man
The inn room smelled of parchment, damp wood, and a faint metallic tang like blood long dried.
The cloaked man sat hunched at the desk beneath the crooked window. Rain had begun to fall, tapping faintly on the shutters like fingers too polite to knock. The candle before him sputtered in protest, its wax pooling in soft sighs. A tattered black crow perched on the sill, wings folded neatly, head tilted with avian scrutiny.
He did not look at it.
Instead, he dragged the quill across the yellowed parchment with sharp, impatient strokes. His fingers were smudged with ink and something darker. The journal's leather cover was cracked, worn by years of use, its corners curled and edges stained by sea spray and ash.
"Blackharbor yields naught but whispers and wine-rotted maps. Another fortnight wasted.
The dungeons here, the one's that are awakened have collapsed into squabble and market fable.
No arcane markers. No abyssal echoes. Not even the scent of thaumaturgy."
He paused, tapping the quill against his jaw. His eyes were sharp beneath the hood, pale grey with flecks of violet not a natural color, not anymore.
"I am beginning to wonder if I am chasing phantoms now."
He sighed and leaned back, letting the quill fall into the ink pot. The candlelight carved deep shadows under his cheekbones, lending him the look of someone who had slept too little and thought too much.
The crow let out a soft croak.
That drew a smirk from him, faint but real. "Yes, yes. You're right. Moping doesn't suit me."
He stood, stretching the stiffness from his limbs. The cloak shifted, revealing a belt lined with glass vials, chalk fragments, and a sheathed blade with runes etched down its spine. A sigil marked his right wrist a brand half-healed, half-burnt into the skin. The design twisted slightly in the light, like ink suspended in oil.
"You saw them, didn't you?" he asked the crow, voice low. "The watchmen? The ones in polished steel, not the city louts. I felt them too."
The crow blinked once.
He nodded. "Good. Then it's time."
He gathered his journal and tucked it into a leather satchel already bloated with arcane maps, faded scrolls, and brittle rune-plated tools. The candle he snuffed with a whisper of shadow a flick of his fingers that drew darkness like smoke into his palm. It coiled once, then vanished.
The room dimmed.
With a glance toward the crow, he opened the window. The creature leapt to his shoulder with a practiced flutter, claws finding familiar purchase through layers of cloth and armor.
"Next time," he muttered as he stepped out of the room, "we go somewhere warmer. I'm half-convinced this whole region's miserable."
"You know the drill," he muttered as he close the door. "Quiet, fast, unseen. I want off this damn coast before dawn."
He opened the door to the hallway, letting the inn's stale ale-and-brine aroma wash in. Below, voices murmured over dice and spilled drink, but none paid him any mind.
He turned to the crow once more.
"And no stealing meat from the kitchens this time."
The crow blinked. Innocent.
He snorted softly and descended the stairs, and into the midnight din of Blackharbor.
The Wharf Quarter was still alive. Lanterns swung from crooked beams, casting dancing shadows across rain-slick stone. A group of faunasians played dice near a boarded-up bakery, their curled horns glinting in the stormlight. merchants shouted over crates of spice. Human sailors with sea-worn faces bargained in sharp bursts of Low Englodian.
The cloaked man kept his hood up, his stride purposeful.
"Listen," he whispered to the crow, whose head swiveled slowly. "Hear that?"
He passed a row of narrow shops. Each open door offered glimpses of nocturnal life: tailors stitching torn gambesons, barkeeps pouring bitterroot ale, a scribe selling fake deeds by lamplight.
From one corner, a voice rasped:
"...Velgate an' Duskwich, skirmishin' again. Some say it's just militia drills. Others say mercs been paid in advance…"
Another:
"...two merchant ships lost to pirates three nights past. Arthorian banners burnt an' left floatin'. The Bastion Navy ain't sayin' nothin'..."
Another, hushed and grim:
"...somethin's wakin' in the Darkshroud Forests, I tell ya. Beasts that dont bleed easily. Trees that whisper names. A boy went missin' near the old watchpost came back speakin' backwards. Eyes black as pitch."
The Magister did not stop walking, but his ears absorbed it all.
"quite interesting isnt" he murmured to the crow.
The crow gave a short caw.
"I know," he replied. "But don't get excited. I've been wrong before."
He turned toward the southern piers, where ships groaned against thick ropes and crewmen moved like ghosts under the flicker of lanterns. The fog here was thicker, and the light caught on the wet cobbles like veins of silver.
Then movement.
A subtle shuffle of boots behind him. Then another.
He stiffened.
The crow ruffled its feathers with a low hiss.
The Magister adjusted the satchel on his back, cloak dragging through the wet mist pooling along the cobblestones. Rain beaded on his shoulders, each droplet catching the haze of lanternlight like pale stars sinking into shadow.
His boots made no sound.
He passed a row of dilapidated buildings taverns, smugglers' dens, brothels masking as tea parlors. Every door was cracked just wide enough for secrets to slip through, and every voice behind them murmured tales not meant for daylight.
"...aye, five parties disappeared up past the runestones in Grey Fen. No bodies found. No signs but blackened moss an' humming stones ye know the kind..."
"...beast attacks near the Shatterpine road. One survivor out of the six that was a part in the caravan..."
"...another noble's been murdered in the high quarter, throat carved with abyssal script. City guards hushed it rather quickly..."
He walked slower now along the buildings.
He turned into a narrow alley running between two warehouse stacks. The crow fluttered off his shoulder, wings slicing the fog before perching on a splintered beam above. It let out a soft, warning croak.
"I feel them too," he whispered.
A moment later, a flicker of steel behind him.
He vanished into shadow.
With barely a sound, he pressed himself into a darkened alcove as the first of the city militia emerged into the alley six of them, helms trimmed with silver, cloaks dark blue and glistening in the rain. Not local thugs. These were trained, quiet in step, eyes scanning, hands near their hilts.
Then three more appeared, flanking the warehouse from the south.
And at their head a woman in a commander's coat, her brass-buttoned uniform bearing the sigil of Blackharbor's Inner Guard. Her voice was iron dipped in venom.
"Fan out. He's here somewhere. Don't let the bastard vanish again."
One of the guards stepped forward. "You think it's really him? The 'wandering shadow'? Nobles said he threatened to set fire to the whole Spire District—"
"—because they lied about the information that i seek" the Magister muttered quietly to the crow. "Tried to be diplomatic but things went south after."
The crow tilted its head.
"No, I didn't kill them. They were very much alive… last I saw."
He turned, took three silent steps deeper into the alleyway then broke into a sprint.
Behind him, shouts rang out.
"THERE! AFTER HIM!"
He dashed through the alley's end and into a cluttered side street stacked high with empty crates, rusting harpoons, and woven nets. The crow soared ahead, guiding him. Footsteps thundered behind him. A crossbow bolt thunked into a crate beside his head.
He ducked into a butcher's passage, leapt over a wooden counter, scattering hooks and bones. An old man shouted, curses in Low Englodian, but the Magister was already through the back door.
Two more guards cut him off near the smokehouse entrance. One raised a glaive.
He whispered.
A shimmer of black rippled across his hand as shadow wrapped around his palm like a silk ribbon. He punched forward, and the nearest guard's vision was drowned in darkness his helm wrenched clean off, his body slamming into the wall like a puppet jerked by strings.
The other froze but too late.
With a flick of his wrist, the Magister conjured a ripple of shadow spikes from the ground beneath the man's feet. The guard fell with a scream and did not rise.
More voices converging now. Arrows whistling through the air.
He darted across the street and into a shipwright's alley narrow, half-collapsed, barely enough room to breathe. He moved like smoke, like memory, slipping through cracks as the shadows deepened around him.
He emerged into the dockfront, where moonlight sliced through clouds above the Sea of Storms. Dozens of ships rocked in the harbor, lanterns swinging wildly, sailors shouting.
He bolted toward the nearest pier.
Then
A hiss in the wind. A split-second shift.
He turned, eyes catching the glint.
The sky above the dock burst with a volley of arrows, whistling down like thunder.
He threw up both hands.
"Umbra Vex!"
A dome of dark energy erupted around him, absorbing the brunt of the strike. Arrows thudded against the shield like hailstones. Sparks of shadow dispersed on impact, rippling across the wet pier.
He exhaled slowly.
As the shield flickered out, he stepped forward to face the gathered militia dozens of them now, in full formation. Bows drawn. Blades bared.
The commander raised a gloved hand.
"Unknown magister! You are hereby condemned under the law of the council of this city for unlawful use of magick, conspiracy against city lords, and a threat to the public. Surrender now or be put down!"
The Magister raised an eyebrow.
"'Put down'? Charming. You practiced that in the mirror, didn't you?"
He took one step closer.
"No?"
He smiled brief and wolfish.
"Then allow me to respond in kind."
The dock groaned beneath the weight of drawn blades and heavy boots. The smell of salt and coal smoke clung to the air. Fog rolled off the Sea of Storms in curling sheets, thick as wool, but it could not hide what was coming.
The Magister stood alone at the edge of the pier cloak trailing in the wind, one hand resting loosely at his side, the other slowly rising.
Dozens of city militia fanned out in a crescent along the waterfront. Onlookers ducked behind crates and crates, lanterns swaying violently on their posts. Somewhere, a gull screamed.
And the rain began again.
The commander raised her gauntlet.
"Archers!"
The bowstrings creaked.
The Magister exhaled.
"Let's begin."
The first volley loosed twenty arrows, fletched in red and white. They screamed through the sky like burning teeth.
The Magister whispered something that cant be heard.
A ripple of black mist exploded from his chest. The arrows hit something that wasn't air each one bending, snapping, and vanishing mid-flight as if swallowed by an invisible maelstrom.
"Close formation! Engage!"
Swords glinted, boots pounded, shields raised.
The Magister blurred forward not running, but gliding, trailing shadows like a comet of ink. He slid between two front-line swordsmen before they could react.
A twist of his hand shadow-lash.
A tendril of darkness erupted from beneath one soldier's feet, coiling around his leg and yanking him violently backward into the sea. His scream vanished beneath the waves.
The second lunged at him, slashing wildly. The Magister sidestepped, caught the man's wrist, and uttered a single syllable.
His shadow detached mimicking the soldier's form, rising behind him.
A heartbeat later, it drove a dagger of pure night through the man's back.
Crossbow bolts fired from the rear. The Magister spun his cloak like a shield—enchanted fabric hardening into obsidian shadow. Two bolts clattered off. One grazed his arm.
He gritted his teeth.
Blood trickled down his sleeve.
"I liked this coat," he growled.
He crouched, hand pressed to the wood of the dock.
"Umbra Infernalis."
From the cracks between the planks, dozens of sharp tendrils shot upward shadow-vines shaped like blades. They ripped through the line of advancing militia like a black bloom in fast motion.
Men screamed. Some fell. Others ran.
The commander shouted orders, rallying the remainders. "Form wedge! Push him toward the ships!"
They charged.
The Magister moved like a viper in smoke.
One man came at him from behind he didn't even look. With a snap of his fingers, the man's shadow rose, twisted, and throttled him mid-stride.
Another swung a mace he caught it in a fist of shadow and turned it back on the wielder, crushing his ribs with a crack.
A firebomb was tossed toward him he saw it coming and extended his hand.
The bottle froze mid-air.
"Return to sender," he whispered.
The bottle reversed course and exploded in the air above the militia lines. A rain of fire and oil lit the pier in violent orange.
Two ships nearby caught fire.
Sailors screamed and jumped into the water. A mast cracked and fell with a thunderous crash.
The dock shook.
The commander stumbled but steadied herself. She pulled a magickal seal from her coat, pressed it to her blade, and shouted: "For the City!"
Her blade glowed with runes some kind of magickal warding enchantment.
She charged the Magister directly.
Their blades clashed her runed longsword versus the twisting, shimmering dagger of night he conjured into his grip. Sparks flew. Shadows screamed in the air around them, echoing with whispering voices.
"You've no idea what you're dealing with!" she yelled.
"Neither do you," he snarled, parrying her stroke.
They fought in a blur of light and dark her strikes disciplined and furious, his evasive and precise.
Then he spun low and kicked her legs out from under her.
She fell.
He didn't kill her.
Not yet.
But he raised his hand again forming a vortex of darkness, shadow-mist spiraling into a black star above his palm.
"You'll remember me," he said.
Then hurled it down.
The pier erupted.
A dome of pure shadow exploded outward in a flash, hurling soldiers back like dolls. The shockwave shattered lanterns, snapped beams, and rocked the nearby ships so hard they tore from their moorings.
Smoke.
Fire.
Shouting.
In the chaos, the Magister vanished.
He reappeared behind a row of crates near a still-intact wagon his other plan.
The merchant he'd bribed earlier was already in the seat, clutching the reins in terror.
The crow landed on the wagon's edge with perfect timing.
The Magister climbed in and pulled the hood low. "Move," he said.
The wagon rolled into the misted alleys, wheels rattling.
Behind him, the docks burned.
Ships cracked in the flames. The sea glowed with reflected firelight. Militia scrambled, moaned, or lay still. And the shadow he'd summoned curled once, like a sleeping serpent, then dissolved into ash.
He didn't look back.
The morning sun broke through a veil of grey clouds, casting pale golden light upon the charred bones of the Blackharbor pier. Smoke still drifted in curling wisps from the splintered hulls of ships, and ash clung to every surface like mourning shrouds.
Workers trudged through the wreckage, soot-covered and silent save for the occasional clang of a hammer or groan of timber being pried loose. Crates of cargo lay shattered across the cobbles, their contents spices, tools, cloths scattered and burned. A fishmonger wept as he stared at the blackened remains of his stall, crushed beneath a collapsed beam.
A city guardsman barked orders as a group of laborers hauled bodies both soldiers and sailors into carts draped in black canvas. Flies buzzed thickly. The stink of seawater, blood, and burned tar filled the air.
One worker crossed himself as they lifted a scorched corpse. "What kind o' beast was it, do ye think?"
"Weren't a beast," muttered another. "Was a man. A man done this."
They worked in silence after that.
Far from the smoke and ruin of the docks, high in the spired marble heart of the city, the Council of Blackharbor gathered in a chamber of stone and brass. The round table was set beneath a stained glass dome depicting the city's great founding myths ships of flame, storm-wreathed cliffs, and a harbor cradled in the middle.
Chancellor Merien of the Coinmaster's Guild, draped in wine-red robes and jeweled rings, slammed a scroll onto the table. "Four ships destroyed. Two partially sunk. Twelve docked vessels damaged by collateral. Piers Five and Six rendered entirely unusable. Trade shipments from neighbouring cities delayed. Estimated loss: fifty-seven thousand gold minimum."
Across from him, Councilor Aethra of the Arcane Registry leaned back, fingers steepled. "And yet no record of this 'Magister' exists in the Registry. No official sanction. No House emblem. No Guild seal. Not even a symbol of his Magister order."
"He threatened nobles," barked Councilman Donvar of the Noble Bloc. His face was red, eyes wide. "Lady Gerra said he turned her shadow against her. The bastard made her own shadow slap her across the face in full ballroom view!"
Laughter threatened to rise, but no one dared.
Lord-Mariner Talrik, a grizzled veteran of a hundred sea skirmishes, scowled from the end of the table. "You should be more concerned that this 'unknown magister' vanished from the heart of the city unscathed after burning half the dockyard and surviving a militia ambush."
Merien pointed at the pile of reports. "And you should be concerned about the damages. We've already had to divert treasury funds that is supposed to be used for the defenses just to begin cleanup. Blackharbor is bleeding coin and confidence."
A pause.
Then another voice of councilor is heard.
"He came seeking something. And when he found it lacking he left fire in his wake."
Councilor Aethra shifted uncomfortably. "What was he looking for?"
A long silence fell over the room.
At last, Chancellor Merien exhaled through his nose. "So what do we do?"
The Lord-Mariner answered.
"We hunt him."
Councilor Aethra nodded. "We shall send the word. Place a bounty through the Magisterium, public and private. Triple pay for anyone who can track shadow magick signatures."
Donvar snarled, "And if he dares set foot on Blackharbor stone again…"
"We bind him in silver, and drop him into the sea," Talrik finished coldly.
None said nothing more.
A wagon rattled down a lonely dirt road beneath the rising sun.
Inside, a hooded figure sat quietly, nursing a burned shoulder and scribbling into a worn leather journal. Beside him, a crow perched on the rim of a crate, watching him intently.
"You were right, again," the man muttered.
The crow cawed.
"I thought there might be something hidden in the area of Blackharbor. But it was just whispers. Dead stone."
He looked to the horizon.
"But not all are lost. Some run deeper."
He closed the journal. Leaned back.
"We head south. There's a ruin in the Drowned Marches. I heard there are active cults in that region."
The crow fluttered once, feathers ruffled by wind.
"And next time," the cloaked man added, smiling faintly, "I'll try not to blow up half a city."
The wagon rolled on.
Behind them, the smoke of Blackharbor is still seen.