Heir of the Fog

CHAPTER NINETY-SEVEN

More Was Said in Silence

There is something almost restorative about seeing the world through another's eyes. Steadied my own vision yet pried it wider—letting me savor heat, color, even a quick spike of fear that never reached the frozen heart of my mist.

Today was no different. My warlock now stood on a path I had foreseen the day she accepted command of Group 84. That little cusp between triumph and ruin gleamed like a blade beneath her boots. She now balanced on that knife-edge, and her innocence, still bright despite the brutal talents I had grafted to her flesh could well become the point that pierced her.

Through her sight I watched molten rivulets chase one another across basalt. Lava hissed and spat at the path her hunting group had just crossed, sealing off retreat. Rogara drew in breath; white fire shimmered along her teeth. The orcs behind her did not breathe flame, did not know how. They had always hidden in the shade of her power, carrying strength like an umbrella they never opened for themselves.

In a scant handful of months they had become a very successful hunting group, yet every victory had taught them the wrong lesson: rely harder on Rogara, think less for themselves, assume her flames would solve what their axes could not. No rotations, no coordinated pushes—none of the fluid choreography the Frostkin practiced within hours of birth. Group 84 moved like a rope with one strong strand and eight weak fibers.

Despite their constant reliance, they still believed none of it was enough, that they deserved more, a more prestigious group, and they thought more highly of themselves for reaching such heights in such a short time.

"I told you there was danger ahead," she snapped, anger laced with self-reproach. She had been their leader, yet when they pressed, when Agnash gave a single nod and a few words, she'd yielded. I, too, had once been this innocent, easily influenced by others, and I paid a heavy price for it. That was how I learned; that is how most crimson learn.

"Master," Ciren's voice rang inside the mist, reverberating through his entire vessel so I could not decide whether it sprouted from the walls or the half-formed titan between us. "Do you think she cannot defeat those pups? Is she truly in danger?"

Ciren and Miran learned to speak well, even some of the orcish tongue from Rogara. Ciren most of all; he yearned to understand the wider world, so I often granted him a window through Rogara's senses.

We stood at the mist's heart, the hollow where new Frostkin were carved. A half‑formed vessel sprawled before us on a cradle of bone‑white ice. Ciren, Miran, and I worked on the next of their brothers.

Before I spoke, Miran answered, his tone a grating rasp that vibrated through the ice cradle. "Don't be foolish brother. She failed to grasp the master's warning… again. Can't you see it?"

The sculptors were strange opposites. They quarreled whenever I withdrew thought, but their quarrels ran deeper than irritation; each argument a forge that tempered the other. I envied Ciren's gentle gaze, the same sweetness I glimpsed in Rogara and remembered in my own lost days.

Ciren's claws paused in mid-score, delicate as healers' tools. "I am seeing exactly what you see: lava pups and nothing more." He sounded hurt, as if Miran's rebuke scraped along an old bruise.

Miran flicked a shard of frost from his fingertip; it clinked to the floor and shattered. "Then you are blind."

Ciren had a passion for life far greater than Miran's. But Miran possessed a vision Ciren lacked, a vision for how to turn life toward destruction. He never requested these windows into the caves, but despite that, he never looked away when I offered him the same view I gave Ciren.

They turned toward me, hunger for an answer glowing in those faces. I sighed, a plume of vapor drifting from parted lips. "Indeed. She misunderstood." Miran's shoulders lifted, a silent flourish of vindication; Ciren's drooped, chastened.

Yet Ciren's mind did not settle. He resumed carving latticework along the vessel's inner ribs, though each stroke grew hesitant. "If not these beasts," he ventured, "then what?"

I allowed the question to hang. Some lessons must unfold in their own brutal cadence; naming the reaper too early only blunts the edge of caution. "Continue sculpting," I said instead.

The shaping hall fell into a rhythm of sound: ice being pared in hair-fine ribbons, the whisper of frost steam, Miran's occasional grunt as he chiseled a new killing ridge along the outer scapula. Despite his mask of indifference, his strikes hit a fraction harder than necessary, edges micro-fracturing. Ciren, distracted by worry for Rogara, traced some supports too thin. I corrected them with a press of ice, smoothing faults before they became failure.

Through Rogara's eyes I watched the scene unfold far above. Lava crept closer, hemmed by hounds that barked jets of fire. Her white flames coiled at her palms, but hesitation slowed her stance; she still searched for a path that let every comrade escape unscathed. Innocent, I thought again, though whether that was praise or condemnation I could not decide.

***

"What… what now?" hissed Katra—the lean Vadruk with snake-bright eyes who constantly complained. A tremor ran through his words, stripping them of the bravado he flaunted when the crystals were still glittering bait rather than a noose of lava.

Panic was no stranger in Group 84. The moment true danger bared its teeth, every head pivoted toward me as if leadership mattered only when hearts lurched against ribs. This time their stares felt heavier than usual. They were crowding close, voices piling over one another, and their nearness clogged the narrow ring of stone we still controlled.

"Focus," Agnash barked, stepping into the space beside me. His tone kept an edge of command, but I saw his knuckles blanch around the grip of his axe. "The ground's disappearing. Hit hard before it melts out from under us."

I once thought him cut from sterner cloth than I. Yet I had seen those hands shake in quieter moments, seen his boots root to stone while his mind searched for courage. Even so, he was right—hesitation would drown us in magma.

I inhaled; the air tasted of iron and rot-sweet brimstone. White fire kindled along my left arm, racing from fingertip to shoulder like ice thawing in reverse. Heat that healed instead of harmed—that loved me even while it could unmake everything around me.

"Rogara, wait!" someone called.

Too late. I swept my arm in a wide arc. The flames leapt outward, a curved blade of brilliance that cracked the dark with a shriek. The nearest lava hounds, creatures born of molten wombs, didn't dodge. Why fear fire when you are fire? They learned. White met orange; for a heartbeat both colors wrestled, then the lesser flame folded, devoured. A dull thunder rolled through the cavern as scorched hides burst. Burning ichor splattered the pack behind them, spreading like a plague.

Howls overlapped, high and thick as horn blasts. The other hounds surged in a single, ripple-tight wave—anger, not fear, driving their charge straight at the source of humiliation: me.

I readied a second sweep, a larger bloom that would clear space, but a quick glance stole the flames from my grip. Katra had edged closer, pressed by two frightened comrades. The yellow of his eyes shone like wet stone. Too near. One flare would roast them before it reached the hounds.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Move!" I snapped, trying to keep the plea buried under command.

Agnash understood first, pivoting clear with a practiced roll, but the cluster around Katra froze, caught between lava and my glare. No time. I throttled the fire, feeling it claw at my veins as I forced it inward. Pain licked up my arm, disappointed to be denied.

Axes then. I drew the twin axes. I met the lunging jaw of the nearest hound, chopping through molten cartilage where neck met shoulder. White sparks raced down the edge as residual flame flared on contact, searing the wound shut even while it split.

Around me the others fought bravely, yes, but small-scope brave. One hound at a time, never daring more. Their weapons skidded on hardened magma plates, striking sparks that died in midair. We were still high in the Abyss; they were untested against beasts of this tier. Every breath they wasted on panic let the lava creep closer, heat blistering the soles of our boots.

I caught Katra's gaze and saw raw terror. "Keep the line tight," I shouted. "Axes low, go for the joints!"

He gave a jerky nod, but it was a nod. Small victories counted.

The pack tightened its circle. Lava slithered nearer, a glowing moat eager for prey too slow to leap. We had room for maybe another minute before stone gave way to liquid fire.

Axes lifted. Flames simmered under my skin, begging release I dared not grant. And the hounds kept coming.

It didn't take long for the first of my group to drop. A pair of lava hounds hamstrung him, and five more were on him before he could scream twice. Flesh tore like wet parchment; his howl curdled into a gargle and was gone.

"Run, run, we gotta—" The words ended in a wet snap as another warrior, broad-jawed, always boasting, gambled on a running leap over the molten moat. His foot hit the far lip, crumbled, and he plunged waist-deep. Lava lapped his torso in slow, hungry waves. He tried to crawl back, skin bubbling, tendons popping.

I stepped toward him—one breath, two. But then, hands clamped my arms. "She's leaving us!" someone shrieked behind me. Fingertips dug through leather.

"Let go," I growled. "I'm trying to save him."

Teeth found my left bicep. A hound my size wrenched away a bloody slab. Fire flashed through nerves. I swore, let the white blaze flood out, sheathing the limb in blinding heat. The wound hissed shut, skin knitting as if time reversed.

A scatter of sparks landed on the fools crowding my back. "Agh—she's burning us again!" Katra's voice, cracked and panicked.

"Small sting or slow death, choose," I barked. They recoiled but didn't break formation; fear pinned them to me like barnacles.

Two gone. Six left alive, seven counting me, but their axes hung useless while they waited for my next miracle. I tasted bile. Only Agnash fought with purpose. His shoulders heaved, breath ragged, but his blade kept the nearest hounds at bay. Even so, we were losing ground—lava gnawed the ring of rock into a shrinking, glowing collar.

"Agnash!" I shouted above the roar. "Make a hole as deep as you can."

He scanned the faces around me, saw the plan, nodded once. Earth affinities ran in his blood; stone answered him like an old friend. The floor beneath our boots flexed, cracked, and sagged into a rough pit.

"I'm not crawling into mud!" Katra spat. Fear made him bold. My patience evaporated; I planted a boot in his chest and shoved. He tumbled with a yelp.

"Anyone else?" No objections. One by one they slid or jumped. Agnash lingered.

"You sure?" he asked, voice gone hoarse.

"No," I admitted.

He dropped, palms pressed flat. Stone rolled back above their heads like closing jaws. The slab locked with a dull thunk—no light, little air, but safer than my next act.

Alone now. Lava kissed the soles of my boots. I let gear, packs, crystals—all of it—fall away. White fire surged from my core, raced over skin, devoured cloth, etched patterns of living light across every scar.

The hounds hesitated; even they sensed something primal in that glow.

More. I poured mana, too much, more than any Vadruk body should hold, into a sphere no wider than my own reach. Muscles screamed; vision silvered at the edges. The blaze pressed inward, hungry to escape.

But it wasn't enough. When my core gave out, I reached for my master's strength. Once, then twice, then a third time I drew from him, each surge making the fire in my hands burn louder, brighter, more alive. The borrowed mana thickened and pressed inward, the sphere growing denser, heavier with each breath.

Agnash's name flickered through my mind, then Omen's. I locked knees, shoved every heartbeat of power into the roiling sphere until control slipped, then I let it slip.

White Bomb.

Light swallowed everything, sound following an eyeblink later. I felt myself become weightless, then stone hammered my back as I slammed into the cavern wall. Air whooshed from my lungs. I tasted copper, stone dust, nothing else.

When the glare faded, ruin spread in every direction. Lava hounds lay as chalk outlines, bodies burned to pale ash. The molten river guttered, surface crusting where white fire had drunk it dry. Even the rock underfoot shimmered, glassed smooth.

I tried to stand. Pain lanced—a jagged reminder that both legs were at wrong angles, one arm numb, ribs shifting like loose tiles. Blood seeped between clenched teeth. No mana. The well was empty; the flames that obeyed me moments ago were embers now.

Two dead, I counted through haze. The rest alive below, if Agnash's stone held. Victory, of a kind.

I sagged against the wall, gasping, vision tunneling. White sparks still crawled across split gauntlets, but they could not answer my call. My body knew only hurt and hollow. I had no more mana to call.

I felt my master's gaze long before I heard the stone crack. It settled over me, tinged with a sorrow that made no sense. "The battle is over," I told him through the bond, lips barely moving. "They're safe. Don't worry."

The slab sealing Agnash's pit erupted outward in a fountain of grit. He still had strength to spare, more than any of the others. Ash-hot air billowed, carrying curses with it.

"Hot, hot—are you trying to roast us alive?" Katra yelped, scrambling over the rim. Blisters peppered his shoulders, but a Vadruk would mend those in hours. I, however, lay pinned against glassed stone; my legs bent wrong, ribs grinding with each breath.

The others followed, six survivors in all. They coughed, swatted at smoldering scraps of clothing, then turned to survey the ruin I had made. Where lava once glowed, only dull slag remained. White ash marked the outlines of forty hounds. Even the molten river itself had guttered, black glass frosting where flame had drunk it dry.

Agnash's eyes widened—then narrowed. No praise, no relief. Something darker simmered there, an ember of anger I had hoped to never see again.

Pain stabbed when I tried to sit. "Bandages," I rasped, blood spotting my lips. No one moved. They clustered instead, close enough to trade whispers, far enough that I could not touch them.

Katra leaned to Agnash, voice meant to die between them. "This is the moment. Do it."

My hearing, sharpened, caught every word. "Do what?" The words scraped out brittle.

Silence answered first, an uneasy shuffling of boots, the hiss of settling slag. Then the six formed a loose crescent around me. Confusion flickered, then drained away as their intent settled.

Katra cleared his throat, trying for bravado. "Nothing personal, Ultharis. But you burned our haul to cinders. No meat, no crystals, nothing for Vadis."

He gestured to the still-smoldering field. "That leaves you open to a leadership challenge. Tradition, you know. Once you're… replaced, other groups will look kinder on us, maybe even recruit us. Defeating an Ultharis earns respect."

The warning had never been about lava hounds. It had been about the blades now hanging behind familiar eyes. I should have seen it: the envy, the fearful glances, the way they huddled under my flame yet cursed its heat.

Still, a sliver of hope clung to Agnash. He was the oldest bond I had left. If challenge came, surely he would stand for me, fight as my second while I healed. None of the others could match him one-on-one, and Vadis laws forbade group duels.

He looked at the melted plain again, then at me, white sparks still crawling over my ruined body. Envy, awe, fear: they churned behind his calm mask, and I suddenly understood how heavy they had grown.

He stepped forward. The others held their breath.

"Rogara, Warlock of Omen," he said, voice ringing louder than any blade. "I don't believe you're fit to lead this group any longer. I call challenge for your seat."

My hope shattered as the challenge fell from his mouth. Agnash, my brother, was the one to issue it.