Scorch

 The subterranean archive beneath the Lyceum was entirely silent, save for the erratic scratching of Magister Kathor’s quill.

He stood alone at the massive stone table in the centre of the obsidian chamber, carefully finalizing a falsified casualty report. The elegant script penned in iron-gall ink detailed the unfortunate and 'tragic accident' that had claimed the life of Lady Hannah Vaelen in the Chalk Hills, ready to be officially stamped and signed by High Director Vane by morning.

As it has always been, it was the night of the secret council’s weekly session, and Kathor waited with quiet satisfaction. With the primary investigator out of the way, the Lyceum’s garrison logs would be entirely within his control by midnight.

The heavy ironwood door groaned, breaking the absolute quiet.

Kathor looked up, expecting the three elder magisters to quietly take their usual places in the shadows. Instead, the elders strode into the dim chamber flanked by two masked Lyceum sentries, who were violently dragging Commander Kenneth between them.

Kathor's brow furrowed in sharp surprise. The sentries shoved the military officer forward and pulled the heavy doors shut behind them, leaving the commander alone with the cabal.

Kenneth stumbled, the gold filigree of his silver plate armour clanking loudly in the quiet vault. His face was pale, a thin sheen of sweat breaking through the scent of his expensive lavender water.

"Tell the Magister yourself, Commander," the first elder mage rasped from the shadows, ignoring Kathor's confusion, his voice dry and trembling with suppressed fury. Kenneth remained on the floor.

"The scrying relays from the eastern ridges have finally reconnected. The harvesting station at the Chalk Hills is gone," said the Elder.

Kathor paused, his quill hovering over the ledger.

"Gone? You mean the extraction is complete," Kathor corrected smoothly. "The Dragon Legion detachment has secured the payload and erased the scribe."

"I mean it is a graveyard," the second, heavier-voiced mage hissed, stepping into the pale candlelight. "Our scouts report that the entire thirty-man detachment of the Dragon Legion is dead. Scorched husks, cracked brass, and white dust. The heavy labour golem has been breached and rendered into scrap. Lady Hannah is missing, and the quarry has been desecrated."

Snap.

The delicate bone quill in Kathor’s hand fractured in two, splintering under the sudden, tense grip of his fingers. He turned slowly toward the sweating military officer.

"Thirty elite veterans of the Dragon Legion," Kathor whispered, his voice dropping to a venomous hiss. "You assured this council that the escort detail was a flawless trap, Kenneth. You told me the knight was a disgraced, war-weary relic. You explicitly told me he was useless!" he added.

"He was!" Kenneth shot back, his composure fracturing as he frantically defended his single role in the mandate. "He is a disgraced Field Marshal! I stripped him of his authority! I used him precisely to deny Lady Hannah the heavy infantry and logistics wagons she requested! I sent her into that quarry with absolutely no military support - just Alderron and a few nameless frontier refugees he dragged in from the dirt. Thirty men of the Dragon Legion should have butchered them in minutes!"

"Yet your 'useless' knight just dismantled a mechanized siege golem and wiped out an elite company!" the first elder mage roared, slamming a fist onto the stone table. “The best sellsword money could buy, you said!” he added.

Kenneth swallowed hard, desperately shaking his head. "I don't know how he did it..But, the casualties are not our primary concern, Magisters. The scouts confirmed the status of the transit chests. The harvesting manifold is completely empty."

All the blood instantly drained from Kathor’s face. The pristine, intellectual calm of the young radical dissolved, leaving only cold, primal dread.

"The entire lot of Amber Mana for the third and final shipment," Kathor breathed, his mind racing through the catastrophic implications of the loss.

"Worse," the third mage - the one with the ink-stained fingers - murmured from the deepest shadow, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "High Director Vane’s authorized transit manifest is missing from the dead sergeant's coat. They have the payload, Kathor. And they have the Director's signature proving the Lyceum financed it."

Kathor backed away from the table, his hands thrust into hair in exasperation. The political game was over. Lady Hannah wasn't just a nuisance anymore - she was carrying the absolute, undeniable proof of high treason directly toward the most formidable military power in Thorreon.

"Alderron.." Kathor muttered, his eyes burning with a dark, terrifying realization. "He isn't running back to the border. He is marching straight to the Capital. If that Field Marshal reaches the White City and lays Vane’s manifest and even just one active Amber Mana cylinder at the feet of Lord-Paladin Brennen.."

"The King's legions will march on Nadaran before the week is out," the heavy-voiced elder finished grimly. "The Paladins of the Holy Light will purge this Lyceum and the High Spire down to its bedrock."

Kathor turned toward the obsidian wall, his mind working with a frantic, desperate velocity. The arrogance that had led him to underestimate the Scribe and the Field Marshal was gone, replaced by the lethal will of a cornered predator.

He walked to a small pedestal in the shadows and flipped the brass latch on an ornate ebony box. From the velvet interior, he retrieved a slender, black-alloy wand crowned with a sharp, tapering crystalline gem that glowed amber.

Without turning around, Kathor murmured a guttural incantation.

Suddenly, crimson geometric rings materialized in the air and descended upon the Knight Commander. A heavy, invisible weight slammed into his being, and the military officer froze instantly. His eyes widening in absolute terror as a localized paralysis hex locked every muscle in his body, rendering his pristine silver armour into a rigid iron tomb.

Kathor whirled around, closing the distance in three swift strides. He grabbed the paralyzed Commander by his manicured hair, violently yanking his head backward to expose his throat.

"You were useless," Kathor whispered to his ear.

With a brutal thrust, Kathor shoved the black-alloy wand directly down Kenneth’s throat.

The amber gem ignited. The raw Unmaking Fire didn't just burn, it withered flesh and bone from the inside out with unnatural fury. Kenneth could not even scream through the paralysis. Thick, gray smoke began to pour from the Commander's open mouth, smelling sharply of sulphur and scorched leather. The Commander’s eyes rolled backwards. In seconds, the proud, arrogant Knight Commander collapsed to the obsidian floor, nothing more than a hollowed, blackened husk inside a pristine shell of silver and gold.

The three elder magisters recoiled into the shadows, staring in horrified silence at the sheer, unhinged brutality of the execution.

Kathor stepped over the smoking corpse, his dark eyes flashing with a fanatical, dangerous brilliance as he looked directly at the trembling secret council. “He was a loose end anyway.”

"Break the seals on the High Spire vaults. If we are to stop a Knight of the White City and a Senior Scribe from reaching the Sovereign Throne, we must intercept them on the high passes ourselves. I will tear the Weave apart myself before I let them reach those gates."

Kathor walked over the ledger he was writing on the stone table. He picked the vellum up, and ripped it apart. “Magisters. We have a new casualty report to forge.”