The Emberfall war council was already a mess by the time Mazen arrived.
Tents had been pushed aside to clear space around a roaring pyre, casting flickering shadows over the assembled leaders. Ember Clans warriors, rogue mercenaries, sorcerers in travel-stained cloaks, and rebel warlords circled the fire, voices raised, hands on hilts.
"We strike the northern grain holds now, while Rhys III's forces are scattered!" a red-bearded mercenary barked.
"And leave the temples unguarded? You want the king claiming more monsters?" spat a Fire Elementalist in reply.
At the center, Ishra of the Ember Clans stood like a flame given flesh. Her copper skin gleamed in the firelight, tribal tattoos curling along her neck.
"Enough!" Ishra's voice cracked like a whip, silencing the din.
Eyes turned toward her — and then toward the figure entering from the dark.
Mark Arkios.
Conversations faltered. Some faces stiffened, others shifted uneasily. Word had spread fast about the stranger who drank the Fire Serpent's rage and lived.
"Arkios." Ishra's voice held challenge.
"You've walked through blood and shadows to get here. So tell us — fight now, or wait for Rhys's hammer to fall?"
Mazen held her gaze.
"We strike. But not blind."
A few scattered nods. Others scowled.
Shadow of the North stepped in, his presence cutting through the tension.
"We don't move till we bleed the king's eyes dry. His assassins are already in our camps. One wrong step, and this rebellion dies before it breathes."
Ishra smirked.
"You always did love your cloak-and-dagger games, Shadow."
"And you always did love throwing lives on the pyre."
The fire cracked, sending sparks into the night.
War was coming.
And no one at that fire was leaving clean.
The fire roared higher as Ishra raised a bloodstained dagger skyward.
"If this rebellion lives, it lives together. Tonight, we seal it with blood and fire!"
The gathered leaders murmured, some uneasy, others eager.
"A pact," Ishra declared.
"Between Emberfall's flame, the Howling Pact's fang, and every stray blade worth their steel."
One by one, warlords cut their palms and let blood drip into the flames.
Mazen stepped forward without hesitation, drawing a shallow line across his palm.
And then Nermin.
Their eyes locked as she approached the fire.
She sneered faintly, refusing to look away.
"Didn't think you rebels played nice with murderers," Nermin muttered, just loud enough for him.
Mazen smirked coldly.
"And here I thought Emberfall recruited anyone desperate enough to swing a blade."
The fire cracked between them.
"Coward," she added under her breath.
"Sneaking into camps like a ghost. What'd you want from Mirra the other night? Planning to slit her throat too?"
Mazen's expression didn't change, but his voice dropped, low and steady.
"I came for someone."
Nermin stiffened.
"Who?"
A pause.
A flicker in his eyes — not anger, but something else.
"Got what I needed."
He turned, blood still trailing from his palm into the fire.
Nermin's gut twisted. The sharp heat of insult, but tangled beneath it, a pulse she hated. A pull. An ache she couldn't name.
Why the hell did he sound like Mazen when he said that?
The same careless look when he had been sad about something.
Wake up, Shina! you can't just think that Mazen could be a murderer like this one.
She forced the thought down and stepped forward, slicing her palm cleanly.
The flames hissed.
Somewhere overhead, the wind stirred unnaturally.
And the pact was sealed.
By dusk, the camp had settled into uneasy silence.
As the blood pact was sealed, the war council disbanded with curses and bitter stares. Only the true fighters remained at the training grounds, sharpening steel and testing magic under flickering torches.
"Again."
Lira Valenne leaned against a boulder, teal eyes glinting as she watched Nermin stagger to her feet.
"You're holding back, Nermin."
"Maybe because every time I push, the wind nearly throws me halfway to the next mountain," Nermin growled.
Lira smirked and tossed her a vial — shimmering liquid the color of storm-tossed skies.
"Drink it. You'll stop flailing and start flying."
Nermin eyed the potion warily.
"You're sure this won't kill me?"
"Seventy percent." Lira winked.
"Drink, rebel girl. The Wind Wyrm's power is calling you."
Nermin took a breath and downed it in a single burning gulp.
Wind screamed through her veins, a rush of cold and lightness that made her skin prickle and her hair lift. The world tilted.
And then — stillness.
She raised a hand. The air shifted, obeying. A breeze coiled around her wrist.
For the first time… control.
Lira grinned.
"Attagirl."
Across the camp, Mazen crouched by the practice yard's edge, the Fire Serpent's mark flaring beneath his skin.
"Focus," the echo of Khan Duren's words rumbled beside him.
"Control the flame, or it controls you."
Mazen snarled and hurled a fistful of fire at a shattered practice dummy. The blaze roared — too wide, too wild — scorching the post behind it.
"Again."
Sweat slicked his brow.
And he did.
Over and over.
Because control meant survival.
And survival meant war.
The air in Emberfall turned colder by nightfall.
Mazen could feel it — the shift. The way warriors spoke in half-whispers, how no one lingered alone by the outer fires. Rumors ran like wildfire.
"Assassins in the camp."
"Rhys's Black Blades."
"Another throat cut by dawn."
Shadow was already moving, war council scattered to secure the perimeter. Ishra tightened Emberfall's inner circle, sending her best to guard Mirra's tent.
And still, it wasn't enough.
The victim was found at midnight — throat opened ear to ear, blood pooled beneath the war banners.
A Howling Pact scout. Loyal. Quick. Dead.
Mazen knelt by the corpse, jaw tight.
"Serak." Shadow's voice was a curse behind him.
"I told you she'd send her snakes."
"And you think this is the last?" Mazen asked.
"No."
Across the camp, Nermin watched from a distance.
Another death. Another weight on the rebellion's brittle spine.
The wind hissed.
And somewhere, Serak herself watched it all — a glint of pale skin and slitted eyes in the shadows.
Smiling.
At dawn, the horns blew.
A dust-choked rider thundered through Emberfall's barricade — a lone figure cloaked in Rhys III's royal colors, a scroll case strapped to his back.
Every blade in the camp was at his throat in seconds.
He didn't flinch.
"By order of His Radiance, King Rhys III of the North," the emissary bellowed, voice cracked but defiant, "let it be known to every warlord, commander, and marked killer within the realm — the Great Tournament of Vortrex is called."
The air turned sharp, the crackle of fire the only sound.
"Those summoned will present themselves at the Bloodpits of Eldryn within seven days. Refusal is treason. Treason is death."
He threw the scroll down into the dirt and spurred his horse away before anyone cared to stop him.
Mazen picked up the scroll. The ink still wet.
His name at the top.
Mark Arkios.
Nermin's eyes found the scroll as well, her blood running cold at the sight of her own name.
Both knew what it meant.
A trap. A stage. A reckoning.
"I'll be there," Mazen muttered, the Fire Serpent's mark flaring beneath his skin.
Nermin clenched a fist.
"So will I."
The wind howled over Emberfall.
And the war rolled on.