Chapter 235: Fire And Ice
Darion turned back to the castle, his footsteps echoing against the stone.
The courtyard was empty, the knights having dispersed after the feast, definitely tired from all the fun, the servants busy with their morning routines.
He walked through the great hall, his eyes scanning the familiar space. The fire crackled in the hearth, casting warm light across the room. But there was no one there to share it with.
He met no one except the distant sounds of Maret in the kitchen, the clatter of pots and pans as she prepared the day’s meals.
Aldra was somewhere nearby, dusting the shelves in the corridor, her movements quiet.
Other than that, the castle was still. Quiet. Empty!
Darion stood in the middle of the great hall, feeling the weight of the silence settle around him.
He was bored. Genuinely, deeply bored. There was no crisis to handle, no battle to plan and no urgent decision to make. The livestock was settled. The farmlands were thriving. The knights were resting after the feast. And Garren was on the road, searching for a mason.
He had nothing to do.
He thought back to his memories of the Emperor’s palace, the place where he had grown up as the unwanted bastard son.
The Emperor never got bored. There was always something happening, always some form of entertainment arranged for him.
Tourneys, where kingdoms and baronies from across Valvanos would gather to compete in grand displays of skill and strength. The Emperor would sit on his raised throne, watching the knights clash and the mages duel, his face a mask of detached amusement.
And there were smaller things too. Plays. The Emperor had a whole theatre built within the palace walls, where actors would perform stories of heroes and villains, of love and betrayal
The Emperor would watch from his private box, his expression unreadable, his mind clearly elsewhere. But he never seemed bored. He always had something to occupy his attention.
Darion remembered watching from the shadows, unseen and unwanted. Now he kind of envied the Emperor’s life, the way everything seemed to revolve around him.
Now, standing in the empty great hall of a crumbling castle, he understood the difference. The Emperor had people to arrange his entertainment. Darion had no one.
What a life he was living.
He hoped it would end soon. He hoped that one day he would start practicing noble duties like being invited to a feast by a neighboring kingdom, attending and making connections.
Or going to a meeting with a neighboring barony, discussing trade and alliances. That would be so cool. That would make him feel like a real Baron, not just a man trying to keep a dying barony alive.
With a sigh, Darion walked to the corner of the hall where the history books were kept.
He pulled out the large one, the one he had been reading on and off for weeks. It was a thick volume, its pages yellowed with age, its binding cracked and worn.
It had been written by people who had lived long before him, people who had seen the rise and fall of kingdoms.
He took the book to the hall, settled into his usual chair near the fire, and began reading.
The book was dense, its contents sprawling across hundreds of pages.
There were stories of wars and alliances, of betrayals and triumphs. There were rules for succession, for marriage, for trade.
There were accounts of legendary figures, their deeds recorded in elaborate detail. It would take ages for him to finish.
Now he was reading about a war between a fire mage kingdom and an ice mage kingdom.
The Fire Mage Kingdom and the Ice Mage Kingdom had once lived in harmony. Their borders were peaceful, their trade routes open, their people friendly.
The leaders of both kingdoms had even planned to marry their children, hoping to strengthen their bond and ensure lasting peace.
It was supposed to be a union that would bring prosperity to both lands.
But the Fire Mages, in their search for more power, had grown greedy.
They coveted the Ice Mages’ most valuable possession: a spell book that contained secrets of elemental control.
It was said to be the most powerful artifact in the region, capable of shaping the very elements themselves. The Fire Mages believed that if they could possess it, they would become unstoppable.
So they stole it.
The theft was carefully planned, executed in the dead of night.
The Ice Mages woke to find their most prized possession gone, replaced only by the lingering scent of smoke and ash. They were furious. They demanded its return, but the Fire Mages refused, claiming they had no knowledge of the theft.
But the Ice Mages found out. Through a network of spies and informants, they discovered the truth. The Fire Mages had taken their spell book. And they had no intention of giving it back.
Chaos erupted as the two kingdoms prepared for war.
The Fire Mages were confident in their power, believing that their mastery of fire would be enough to overwhelm their enemies.
The Ice Mages were equally confident, convinced that their control over frost and cold would freeze their foes in their tracks.
The war that followed was brutal and intense. Both sides unleashed their full might, the skies darkening with smoke and ice.
The Fire Mages called down pillars of flame, scorching the earth and turning villages to ash.
The Ice Mages responded with blizzards and freezing winds, encasing entire armies in ice. The land between them became a wasteland, a scarred and broken landscape where nothing could grow.
The fighting continued for months, neither side willing to back down.
But in the end, it was the Fire Mages who made the final mistake. In their desperation, they unleashed a spell of such immense power that it consumed everything in its path. The Ice Mages retaliated with equal force, their magic colliding with the fire in a catastrophic explosion.
The explosion was so large, so devastating, that it killed every single one of them. The Fire Mage Kingdom and the Ice Mage Kingdom were wiped from existence. Their cities crumbled. Their people perished. Their power, their ambition, their hatred, all of it was reduced to ash and frost.
Only three servants survived, all of them badly injured. Two from the Fire Mages’ side, one from the Ice Mages.
They emerged from the ruins, scarred and broken, the only witnesses to the destruction. They told the story to anyone who would listen, a warning to future generations of what happens when power becomes more important than peace.
Darion opened his eyes widely now.
"Damn," he muttered.
He dropped the history book and leaned back in his chair, his mind still turning over the story he had just read. The fire mages and ice mages, their war, their destruction, it was definitely an anticlimactic fight.
All that power, all that ambition, and in the end, they had destroyed themselves. No victor, no spoils and no legacy.
Only that it turned into an epic history of ash and ice told by three broken servants.
He imagined the amount of fire spells cast, the sheer volume of magic that must have been unleashed.
Pillars of flame rising from the earth, consuming everything in their path. Waves of ice and frost spreading across the land, freezing soldiers where they stood.
The sky must have been a chaotic mess of orange and blue, the air thick with smoke and cold. The ground would have cracked and split, unable to withstand the opposing forces.
And then, in the end, the explosion. A cataclysmic burst of energy that had wiped out both kingdoms.
He imagined the shockwave, the blinding light, the silence that followed. Inasmuch it was the kind of thing that haunted you, the kind of story that stayed with you long after you had finished reading, Darion found it very entertaining and it taught him something too.
He thought about his own power, his own class. He was a Necromancer, a wielder of death and decay.
It was a useful class, a powerful class, but it had its limits. He could raise the dead, command armies of undead, and strike fear into the hearts of his enemies. But he couldn’t summon dragons. He couldn’t fly. He couldn’t level a kingdom with a single spell.
It was things like this that made him sometimes wish he wasn’t a Necromancer.
What if in the Emperor’s court, he had awakened something else?
Something more spectacular, more awe-inspiring. He imagined himself as a Summoner, a master of mythical creatures.
He could summon dragons that would take to the sky, their wings blotting out the sun. He would have the ability of flight, soaring above the battlefield, commanding his draconic army from above. He could level a kingdom with a single command, reducing it to rubble and ash.
He imagined the dragons, their scales gleaming in the sunlight, their eyes burning with ancient intelligence.
They would be unstoppable, a force of nature that no army could withstand. He would be feared, respected, admired. He would probably be the most powerful being in Valvanos...