December 17th, 307 After the Magical Revolution

“Oh, poor… poor Nero, left all alone. But don’t be sad… Since I’m here, I’ll be sure to congratulate you on your last birthday, Señor Nero…” Tyr  or the man who looked like Tyr burst into laughter before he could finish, almost clutching his stomach with mirth.

Then Tyr stepped several meters away from the boy. He gave him a cold look, then pointed his wand at the ice beneath him. None of it mattered anymore: Nero was completely broken; his body could no longer move, and his mind was beyond saving.

But then Tyr added, as if hammering the final nails into the coffin of a boy already slain:

“Give my regards to your family… And farewell!”

“Glaciofragor!” he pronounced.

The ice at Nero’s feet split, and the exhausted boy suddenly plunged into the freezing water. The cold seized him instantly, and he slowly began to sink. His strength left him; in helplessness and despair, Nero closed his eyes…

Tyr stood on the ice for a few more seconds near the floating shards, watching as Nero sank deeper into the dark abyss. Soon bored of it, he turned without emotion and headed back toward the Lavrelio estate, blazing like a great pyre.

That night the outside temperature fell to as low as minus fifteen degrees Celsius hardly warm. But beneath the thick ice, the lake’s water sat around zero degrees, perhaps a touch higher. It wasn’t an ordinary lake, after all.

Thanks to that difference in temperature or perhaps out of sheer luck the crusts of ice and frost covering the boy’s body, which had prevented him from moving, thawed and slowly slipped away. What had bound him in place finally disappeared, despite his frostbitten limbs.

Feeling a slight relief, Nero forced his eyes open. He tried to make out something in the water, but there was only darkness and blinding rays of light; for now, he couldn’t understand what they were. The dull, throbbing pain radiating from his wounds all over his body kept him from thinking.

Strangely, the water felt… warm certainly warmer than anything he’d felt in the last ten minutes.

It seemed as if even the cold had receded a little, and Nero came to his senses. He managed to move his fingers and toes, though the wounds still hurt. Blood bled out, dissolving into the water, leaving behind a faint red thread trailing upward.

The only thing he could make out clearly was a bright blue glow that came from the Moon. It shone brilliantly, relentlessly. By some ridiculous coincidence, the beams struck him right in the face, so Nero could see nothing at all.

He tried to calm himself, but the air in his lungs was running out fast. He didn’t know where the bottom was, nor where the precious hole in the ice lay—the one he’d fallen through. And even if he did know, he had no idea how to get back to it.

The extremity of the situation drove him to act anything, so long as he didn’t keep sinking. Estimating roughly where he might have fallen in, Nero tried to swim up and to the left.

In truth, it couldn’t really be called swimming. He could barely move. Yes, he’d been freed of the ice but he still couldn’t feel half his body, though he didn’t notice it then, just as he didn’t notice how clumsy his strokes were.

It was desperate… the cold still seeped in, making it harder to move and to think straight.

At last Nero reached the surface—or, rather, smashed his head against the ice above. The crack resounded in his ears like a bell. For a moment he lost his bearings again. He clutched his head to quell the pain. Soon he steadied himself a little and, despite the headache, began feeling along the ice for an exit.

His open eyes were completely useless in the icy water. Everything he saw was a blurry mint-blue haze in front of him. Sometimes he could make out a movement or an object but sight was no help here at all.

Nero was exhausted; oxygen was nearly gone, and he fought with his last strength. He tried to break the ice, but instead of smashing through, he only split the skin on his knuckles, bloodying them. The pain no longer seemed so sharp he barely noticed it. There were more urgent matters…

“Where’s the way out!!!” he screamed inside his head.

His strength left him; unable to keep fighting, Nero slowly began to sink again. His body slackened, his mind fogged.

It was all in vain. Nero realized he was far from the place where he’d fallen through. All that remained was to search desperately for a way out—but in that moment even his thoughts scattered in panic. “I-I can’t find it… It’s useless…” As that realization struck him, he began pounding the ice frantically with his fists.

It wasn’t just panic—this was animal terror, a fear Nero had never experienced before.

A strangling pain burst from his chest, and Nero began coughing, spewing blood mixed with water. Reflexively he grabbed at his mouth, trying to stop the cough, but it was too late. He had been underwater for almost two minutes, and the coughing only made things worse; he had swallowed enough water to make himself even sicker. A heavy sense of helplessness settled in his chest.

“Anto… Mom… Dad…” All Nero could do was stare at the lunar glow and sink.

“Tyr… Curse you. I-I’ll make you suffer… as much as I did…” His thoughts came out as a curse—or rather, he wanted to believe they did. It was the last thing he thought of; his eyes began to close…

A surge of energy forced them open. In an instant he felt something both pierce straight through him and lend him a little strength. It was like one last rush of adrenaline.

His whole body seized in a spasm, then, eyes wide, Nero reached his hand up toward the moonlight as if trying to grasp it and crush it in his fist. Strange runic glyphs spread across his arm, and pale blue lights began to gather around him. As he clenched his fist, the boy’s eyes—and the runes on his arm flared with the same bright light as the lunar beam.

Ringing in his ears, terrible pain, the feeling of a lump in his throat—those few seconds seemed like an eternity to Nero. The water churned, and a sudden jet slammed into his back; dozens more jets shot past him toward the moonlit glow.

In the middle of the vast frozen lake, a thunderous crack rang out—a massive column of water shattered the ice and blasted into the sky. From it, Nero shot out at speed and, from a height of roughly ten to fifteen meters, slammed into a large drift of snow at the lake’s edge.

He scrambled to his feet, staggered a few steps, then fell to his knees and coughed, hacking up all the water he had swallowed as he drowned. After about twenty seconds, the coughing gave way to throat-rending agony—a burning in his throat, likely from the brutal cold. There was no other name for it than a side effect of such horrific exposure to freezing air and now he was soaked through as well.

Pushing himself up, Nero wiped his eyes with a wet sleeve, then looked toward the estate.

Shivering, he froze in place; it seemed he even stopped breathing. His eyes widened—before him unfolded a truly terrible sight.

Everything around the estate was burning—including the estate itself, of course. From the great winter forest to the left, to the servants’ quarters and the smaller woods on the other side—everything blazed with bright red fire.

Pillars of smoke too many to count rose high into the sky and disappeared beyond the clouds. And if one peered through the smoke, one could make out huge spherical silhouettes, looking like… like airships?

Nero gave it no thought.

A brutal shiver ran through him, and the unprepared boy groaned. He sat down in the snow and held his hands out, concentrating on a single point. After a few seconds, there was a flash of light, followed by a small flame.

Fire — exactly what he needed now.

Clinging to it like a final source of warmth, Nero pressed as close to the fireball as he could. He singed himself a little, but he began to warm up; after a few minutes, the color returned to his lips—something at least faintly resembling a healthy hue—and he could move his hands.

Silently thanking his magic tutor, Nero lifted his head and looked at the estate again. What he saw reflected in his eyes was a place that could hardly be called a home or a workplace anymore; soon there would be nothing left but ash.

The boy stood and, barely maintaining the little flame around him, limped toward the house.

Above the burning building, airships hovered. They bore the crest of the Dustin Empire, and one began to descend, landing right in front of the manor’s main entrance. Seeing the state of the great Stella Von Lavrelio, no one needed an invitation anymore.

In every home of wealthy and influential aristocrats, there had to be one particular magical device installed—the “Detector.”

Theo Von Lavrelio had invented and presented this device for the first time about twenty-seven years ago. It had a vast effective range and worked on a principle similar to radar, displaying the activity of a given individual and recording illegal intrusions. A universal tool people loved it, and every self-respecting magnate wanted one, if only to show off.

Upon an intrusion, the device, with the help of another artifact, transmitted the gathered information directly to the Imperial Guard, sending an alert message. The same thing happened if, suddenly, a large number of people vanished from the estate at once.

The “radar” worked on the principle: if there is a mana signature there is a person. Everyone possesses mana, and upon a person’s death, all the energy accumulated over a lifetime simply dissipated… That was exactly what the artifact created by the brilliant engineer and scholar Theo reacted to.

In our case, more than a hundred people had disappeared within the estate grounds, and the Empire lost its mind, dispatching four airships at once.

Passing through the already smoky forest, Nero limped now and then on his right leg, heading toward the house.

Meanwhile, at the estate…

Mages in strict black military uniforms surrounded the burning grounds. In an attempt to stop the great forest fire from several directions at once, they split into units of a little over thirty people each.

All of them were mages with a minimum of eight years of experience and excellent training; they were prepared to respond to every possible situation.

Because of that, they managed to extinguish the fast-spreading forest fire in just a quarter of an hour and then moved on to the buildings on the estate grounds.

Under such circumstances, their main task was the preservation of human lives and of the surrounding nature. The nature of the northern lands was a crucial part of production across the Empire; vast expanses filled with tall, green fir were among the region’s prized assets—not to mention the mines and so forth.

In the dead of night, around two o’clock…

While some continued to smother the remaining fires, others carried out the search for survivors; they also moved every body they found farther away for later identification. The bodies were laid beyond the estate, one meter apart, and covered with a blue fiber cloth.

They knew perfectly well the appearance of those they were to prioritize saving, and when the enTyre front face of the manor had been extinguished, several soldiers came out with the most downcast expressions. They took off their outer coats and covered the bodies of Dolores and Antonio Von Lavrelio.

Two soldiers carefully carried the bodies out of the building, draping them in their coats to hide the disfigured faces and burned upper torsos. A faint smell of burning still clung to them, mixed with smoke and ash. The soldiers carefully brought the bodies beyond the estate’s borders and laid them apart from the rest. Covering them with a special red cloth, the men put their coats back on after making sure no one but themselves had seen the faces of the dead.

While some were putting their coats back on, others, on the far side of the estate, were still engaged in fierce battles with the flames. They cast water spells in turn; after each burst, one mage relieved another—and at that pace they drove the fire toward the center and pinned it in from all sides, dousing it in rotation.

In the darkness of night, when the path was lit only by several small lights floating around a man, a tall, black-haired man of middle age walked on. He wore a shirt one sleeve torn off, and in his arms he carried a small, ash-haired boy wrapped in a military coat.

The boy’s lips and fingertips had turned blue, and a white strip of cloth was tied around his right leg apparently torn from the man’s shirt to make a bandage. From time to time the boy managed to open his eyes and tried to look around, but in vain. He abandoned those feeble attempts and lay quietly in the man’s arms drifting in and out of consciousness.

Thus, an Imperial mage, with Nero in his arms, reached the still-burning estate…