Chapter 3 · free to read
Two nights ago an archmage lost every ward he owned to a man with no magic at all. The Spire did what institutions do. It scheduled a meeting.
Thirteen seats. Nine occupied. Two thousand years of accumulated authority.
Six years. Four hundred and eleven names. Every one of them a student who failed out of the Spire and was never seen going home.
They shook on it at the ninth bell. By the tenth, a man in a burned mantle knew every word.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.