Aric stifled a sharp cry. If Malekith glanced at him, he was careful not to meet it.

“Prepare the vanguard,” Malekith said to General Vezera. “We will press the advantage.”

The demons roared their battle cry as they launched themselves onward. Malekith’s strategy was working, the humans reeling from the sudden breach of their defenses.

But it was a fragile thing, that breach, and Aric knew it wouldn’t hold. Already, the mages on the walls were regrouping, their spells crackling in the air. If the demons didn’t move quickly, the humans would reinforce the wards, and the battle would once again grind to a bloody stalemate.

Be swift, Aric urged the Silver Tower’s mages, with all the fervor he could muster, all the prayers to long-dead gods that he could spare. Repel them quickly. Make the cost of victory too high.

But his hopes were in vain.

The demon vanguard struck the human defenders with the force of a battering ram, but it was Karthax’s berserkers who shattered them. Karthax himself was a whirlwind of steel and fury as he waded into the human ranks, his twin forearm blades a blur as he hewed a path through their lines. He was a nightmare made flesh, a vision of savage brutality as he cleaved through the defenders with a primal roar.

Aric’s heart seized with a terrible pain as he watched the carnage unfold. The humans fought with a desperate courage, but it was no match for the berserkers’ bloodlust. They were like a force of nature, unstoppable and relentless as they carved a path along the ramparts.

“By the gods,” someone whispered, and Aric realized dimly that it was him.

He had thought himself prepared for the horrors of war, but nothing could have steeled him for the sight of it, the raw, unbridled violence playing out before his eyes. The stench of blood and smoke filled the air, the sounds of battle a cacophony that threatened to shatter his mind. He was frozen in place, a silent witness to the slaughter unfolding before him.

The town’s defenders were regrouping, but it was too late—the demon army had already breached their walls. Aric fought back a bitter rush of bile in his throat he watched the chaos unfolding below. The humans waged their defense with a desperate kind of courage, their spears flashing in the morning light, but they were too few in number, too helpless without their wards to withstand the demon horde.

“Now, General,” Malekith called to Vezera, and wove a dreadful spell of darkness to usher her forces along.

Malekith’s forces surged forward, a tide of blackened armor threatening to engulf the town. The demons howled with triumph as they pressed their advantage, their shadows swallowing up the streets.

Aric’s hands clenched into fists at his sides. He should be down there with the Silver Tower, doing everything in his power to protect the town. He should be bolstering the Pureblade Order and their light from the gods themselves. But instead, he was here, at the back of the demon army, watching helplessly as the world he’d known was torn apart.

“Look at them,” Vizra said, her eyes shining with bloodlust. “Scrambling like ants. They never stood a chance.”

Aric’s stomach turned, but he forced himself to watch, to study the town’s defenders. There were mages among them still, their robes billowing as they worked their spells in the air. If they could hold the demons back, even for a few precious moments, they might have a chance at driving them back.

But it was a slim hope, and Aric knew it. The demon army was too vast, too powerful. The town’s defenders were brave, but bravery alone would not be enough to save them.

And then, as the first wave of demons reached the town square, the mages unleashed their magic, a blinding cascade of light.

But even from where he stood, Aric could see that it wasn’t enough.

And then the walls of Drindal crumbled, and the world turned to chaos.

The town had never been designed for a siege, even after the ward station was erected and the eternal stalemate at the edge of the demon realms turned to a boil, and the human defenders were quickly overwhelmed. The demon vanguard poured through the breach like a tide of black steel, their war cries shattering the morning air. Malekith led the charge, his sword a wicked slash of shadow as he cut down any who dared to stand in his way.

“Forward!” Malekith bellowed, his voice carrying over the chaos of battle. “To the town square! We will establish a foothold there and push outwards.”

The demons surged forward, a living river of darkness, and Aric was swept up in the current. He moved on instinct, his body moving as if on its own. His hands were numb, his mind a blank. His thoughts roared with the blaze of his magic, so painfully and tauntingly out of reach, and he could not hear his own thoughts for the crackle and roar of fire that engulfed his senses.

The town square was a scene of carnage, redolent of blood and smoke. The demons had pushed the humans back, but the defenders were rallying, their mages launching bolts of searing light into the demon ranks. Aric paid them no mind as he wove his way through the chaos, his eyes fixed on Malekith’s dark figure at the center of the square.

This was Drindal now, a feast for demons and a grave for his own. His mind could scarcely comprehend the incongruous sight as the monstrous hordes flooded over the paved stone plazas, the cobbled paths. This was what his ambition had wrought—all this, possible because of his failings, because of him.

Aric was six the first time he visited Drindal, although it wasn’t his first excursion beyond the Tower’s walls. His mentor, Olaya, took him on what she called a “field expedition” every summer, journeying to the nearby towns and villages that dotted the foothills of the mountains. These trips served a dual purpose: to educate him in the ways of the human realm, and to give the mages of the towns a chance to meet and learn from the prodigious young talent of the Silver Tower.

For Olaya’s visits, the townsfolk would open their markets, lay out their finest wares, and prepare a series of tests for her young apprentice to solve. Sometimes it was a riddle or a puzzle box; other times, it was a test of magical skill, like the time he and another apprentice raced to mend a broken fountain, or the time he was tasked with building a functioning shield charm from only the raw materials provided to him.

He lost almost as often as he won, but Olaya never faulted him for it. “The point is to see other ways of doing things,” she told him after his third expedition. “If the point was to win, there would be no need for a test at all, for I could merely show you how it was done.”

When he turned twelve, Olaya announced that he was old enough to explore the town on his own—under the condition that he meet her at the inn by nightfall. Aric had never been given such freedom before, and he reveled in it, his eyes wide as he wandered the cobbled streets, the salty sea air of the coastal town a heady perfume.

He visited the market first, drawn to the colorful silks and exotic spices that the human traders brought from far-off lands. He lingered at the stalls of booksellers, poring over tomes and scrolls that he could never hope to find at the Tower, and lost track of time in a quaint tea house where a trio of bards sang of distant lands and epic quests.

But the real magic of Drindal, he soon discovered, lay in its hot springs, a series of natural pools that bubbled and steamed in the heart of the town. The mages of the Silver Tower frequented them after a long day of training, soaking in the mineral-rich waters, and Aric understood immediately why. The heat of the water worked out the kinks in his muscles, and the scent of sulfur and salt soothed his frayed nerves. He could have stayed there for hours, drifting in and out of a blissful trance, the cares of the world melting away.

But eventually the sun began to dip towards the horizon, and he remembered Olaya’s warning. He was a guest in this town, and he would not disrespect their hospitality. With a wistful glance back at the pools, he pulled himself from the water and headed for the inn to meet his mentor.

And now, as he staggered, dazed, through the streets of the broken town, Aric felt that same sense of wonder and freedom that had filled him as a boy curdle like milk in his heart.

He moved through the town like a ghost, the bitter tang of death and failure coating his tongue. The demon army had left nothing in its wake, the streets littered with the broken bodies of the town’s defenders. They had fought bravely, he would give them that, but it had not been enough to hold back the tide.

Aric’s steps were unsteady as he trudged towards the hot springs, the memory of them a distant ache. The pools were still there, still bubbling and steaming, but the magic that had once infused them was gone. In its place was a palpable sense of wrongness, a stain on the world that he could never wash away.

He had known this would be the price of his bargain with Malekith, the cost of saving himself and Malekith from Sovereign Zaxos’s wrath. But knowing it in his head was a far cry from feeling it in his bones, from tasting the bitterness of it on the air.

Was this really what it had come to? Had he really allied himself with the demons, the same creatures who had terrorized his people for centuries? He tried to tell himself that it was all part of a greater game, that he was playing a long and dangerous game to protect the human realm. But as he looked at the devastation around him, it was hard to hold onto that truth.

Was this what it would take to end the war, to make the demons see that there was another way? How much more blood would have to be shed before the balance of power shifted, before his people were safe?

Aric curled fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palms. There was a part of him that wanted to run, to flee into the mountains and never look back. He could leave the demon army to their conquest, let them believe that they had broken him. He could make his way back to the human realm, warn them of the threat that was coming.

But he knew it was a fool’s hope. The demon scouts were already ranging far and wide, their shadowy forms blotting out the stars. And even if he somehow managed to evade them, there was still Vizra, her spies no doubt already at work, sowing discord and gathering information.

No, there was no going back for him, not now. His only path was forward, to see this through to the end. He had made his choice, and now he would have to live with the consequences, whatever they might be.

Despite the devastation, the town square brimmed with frenzied activity. Demon soldiers swarmed over the wreckage, looting and plundering with savage glee. The town’s residents had fled, their screams echoing in the distance, and some unruly wraiths and implings chased after them, but the commanding demons paid them no mind. They were too caught up in the heady rush of victory, their eyes burning with savage glee as they tore the town apart.

Malekith watched it all with a strained smile on his face, his gaze distant. He sat on a makeshift throne of shattered stone, the mangled body of a human defender at his feet as General Vezera reported to him on their initial assessment of the town. Aric’s stomach turned at the sight, but he forced himself to keep his face blank, to play his part. He was Malekith’s pet human and nothing more. He was only a traitor, as far as the rest of the armies were concerned. He could not betray any other motive.

After permitting this, no one would believe it anyhow.

Aric approached Malekith and Vezera, and Vezera straightened with a nod and a clearing of her throat. “I’ll deliver your orders to my lieutenants and report back,” she said to Malekith, then trotted off to give them space.

Malekith watched Aric with a heavy stare. Aric wanted to believe Malekith felt the same conflict currently ravaging his heart. he wanted it so badly. But how could he be sure?

“Solarian,” Malekith said.

None of the kindness, the concern, the sweet pet names and tender mercies he’d shown him the night before. Was it for the eyes and ears all around them, or only for himself?

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Aric asked, keeping his voice low. “A chance to show your strength, to prove to your people that you are worthy of the crown.”

Malekith flinched, his eyes dark. “Do not presume to know my mind, little mage.”