I'm alive. I feel bad that most of my author's notes start with that sentence, but I'm a very serious procrastinator. If there was a competition for biggest procrastinator I wouldn't even enter.

That confusing third chapter was filler and a poorly-described fight on what I think was a street curb surrounding a fire in my mind. Yeah… I wrote it in like fifteen minutes.

Word count: 2,425

"Ah, shit," Mark said upon reaching the throne room. There, he found exactly whom he expected: Narcian, currently in a standoff against Roy, with Lilina unconscious on the ground behind the prince. And that purple-haired mage Roy had hired without consulting Mark… Using an interesting stance reminiscent of druids…

With no time for Mark to call out, Narcian leapt off of his wyvern mount, opting to attack from two fronts. He charged directly at Roy while the beast began swiping at the mage. Unsurprisingly, it took one spout of wind magic to force the beast back, and Narcian ended up on the end of the princeling's blade before Mark could even approach.

"Get a cleric on Lilina, Roy; you can visit her later."

"You're an ass," Roy replied, brushing straight past the tactician and scooping his childhood friend into his arms.

"We need to discuss our next move."

"Some things can wait."

"Roy, they have damned dragons!"

"And we have damned injured!"

Pacing back and forth in Etruria Castle's strategy room, Mark stood before the assembled leaders of the Etruria-Lycia allied force. Among them were the three Etrurian generals, Perceval, Cecilia and Douglas, Prince Mildain-now-Elphin, Roy, and Lilina. Sue and Marcus were also in attendance. Not one of them looked remotely pleased with the strategist.

"You're going to get us killed," Elphin began matter-of-factly. "We're not ready for an all-out offense against Bern."

"That's what Bern thinks," Mark countered. "We can do this, provided we strike as soon as possible."

"The border is too well-guarded," Douglas said. "Our forces would be decimated before we even entered the enemy's territory."

"May I remind this council that the 'enemy's territory' includes two northern nations, both of which are struggling to resist Bern from within?" Mark asked.

"We retake them, gain allies and make a smooth entrance to Bern!" Lilina exclaimed.

"No time," Roy replied. "Maybe one… But we will have to leave one to its own devices for a while longer…"

"So we have to choose?" Cecilia asked. "How is that fair?"

"Because fair wins wars," Mark said sarcastically.

"Sacae."

The group collectively turned their heads to the nomad girl.

Pleading her case, Sue continued, "My grandfather, Dayan the Silver Wolf, is leading a rebellion as we speak. Shin confirmed he was still alive and the rebellion was still active as of one month ago."

Each councilmember looked to the others, giving a collective nod. Pricking his finger on his pendant, Mark announced, "We leave at dawn."

In a seedy tavern in the corner of Etruria, an inebriated, violet-haired playboy began striking out. After his third attempt at flirtations had ended in swift rejection, he turned to sulking on a barstool, alcohol refusing to abandon him.

"Sir mage?"

"Pfft," Hugh choked on the mead purchased with his new wages, laughing. "I'm a merc, sweetheart. Say, how old are you?"

"Old enough and not interested," Sue answered coldly. "I was hoping to hire your arcane knowledge."

"What for?" Hugh said, sitting up in his chair and gesturing for the young nomad to take the seat beside him. She sat, handing him a thin, newly-bound book. Taking it and opening to the first page, Hugh sighed. As soon as he laid eyes on them, the letters on the page began shifting around until they were an indecipherable mess.

"Have you ever seen an enchantment like this, Hugh?"

"Yeah. Lotsa times. My dad used them in all his texts."

"Really?" Sue's eyes lit up. "Could you disenchant it?"

"Yeah, but I'll have to do it nearly word for word. It could take weeks even without battle being the priority, and that really adds up."

"I can match half of your army wages now and the same when you finish."

Picking up the book and rising to his feet, Hugh grinned, even as his face turned green. "You have a deal, provided you forgive what I'm about to do in your presence."

Leaving the bar thirty seconds later, Sue grimaced, feeling sick herself. She had heard of those who regularly engage in overindulgence, but the Sacaen way of life involved too much self control for any true nomad to waste themselves away. Still, she couldn't be completely disheartened; her mother's diary was finally becoming readable!

"Lilina, will you come on a walk with me?"

Rising, startled, from the desk at which she was reading, Lilina smiled.

"So why'd you call me out here?"

"I can't just ask a pretty girl out every now and again?" Roy answered.

"Stop it," his childhood friend turned away, even as she subtly closed a few inches between them. "You have a reason for everything you do now. Mark's calculations are rubbing off on you."

"Gods, just stop me before I inherit his people skills," the Pheraean prince chuckled.

"You know, I think he's a nice person, mister!" Lilina argued lightly, before turning serious. "I feel like, I don't know, like he used to be nice to people, but something bad happened. I wish I could talk to him, find out what it is. It could help him heal."

Roy looked forward as they walked the palace corridors. "My dad said once that when he first met my mom, he wasn't attracted to her. Well, he found her attractive, but he wasn't interested in her. He said it was Lyndis, Sue's mother, whom he originally wanted to court."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But he backed away after seeing how close she was to Mark. My father, at least, was under the impression that they were romantically involved. But in the end, Lyndis married Rath, and Sue was born pretty quickly afterward. I heard that Mark stayed in Lycia just long enough to honor my parents' request to name me, but then he took off. He said it was to train his tactics after the massive casualties from the battles with Nergal, but Marcus will swear up and down that he just went to sulk about Lyndis. Flash-forward nineteen years, and I find him in a bar."

"Wow," Lilina said quietly. "That sounds terrible… Do you know whether he ever confronted Lyndis with his feelings? Or rather, where is Lyndis?"

"Dead."

Roy swiveled around, putting himself between Lilina and the new voice before relaxing.

"I'm sorry for eavesdropping," Sue apologized. "If you'd like, I can tell you how things played out with my family."

"Please," Lilina said. "Would you join us on our walk?"

Why they had walked to the castle town's parapets, they couldn't say. Still, this is where Sue felt calm, and after a moment to collect herself, she began.

"My father, Rath, married Lyndis immediately after the war. I was born quickly afterward. That should make me older than you, Sir Roy," she smiled lightly. "When I was in my sixth year, my father went on a hunting trip. There was some sort of mishap, resulting in my father falling from his horse and being trampled by the great boar the group was hunting. He suffered major injuries, particularly to his head. He survived, thanks to our skilled healers, but the incident left him… Damaged."

"Damaged?" Roy asked.

"He suffered from a never-ending headache, and occasionally had violent breakdowns. My mother soon sent me to live with my grandfather, the Silver Wolf, as you know, but she continued to live with him for several months. They say she was attempting all sorts of methods – all humane and reasonable – to heal him, but it ended poorly. All I know for certain is that my grandfather took me to my mother's funeral, and my father was not seen again."

"Dear gods," Lilina gasped. "He… He couldn't have…?"

Sue's normally passive tone reflected her anger. "I believe he killed her in one of his anger fits, but my tribe never disclosed to me the full truth, no matter how I begged or demanded. After my mother's death, my grandfather chose to stay with me in my tribe, and he raised me into the woman I am today."

"He did a swell job," Roy said, putting a hand on Sue's shoulder. "Er… did you mean to lead into something about our tactician?"

"Yes," Sue perked up. "I did not remember until a few days ago, and couldn't put the pieces together until I overheard you two talking about Mark and my mother. Just two days after my mother's funeral, Mark came to my tribe. He asked me if I was Lyn's daughter, and I told him she had died. He immediately left. I only realized it was him after spending time with your army, but there is no doubt in my mind."

"This is all very interesting," Lilina said. "This would certainly explain much of his pessimism."

"I agree," Roy said. "Let's continue on our walk; it's getting fairly late."

After a moment of pondering and several minutes of lighter talk, Roy escorted the two girls to their shared room in the castle, before retiring to his own, new thoughts and possibilities swarming his mind.

"Hello. My name is Canas. I am an imprint of the original creator of this enchanted text. You are not Lyndis the Sacaen, Mark the Traveller, or of their bloodlines. You are not authorized to unseal this book, and attempts to do so will result in an incendiary spell consuming it."

"Well, that's ominous," Hugh muttered, the image of his father floating in the air. "Are you intelligent, or a recorded message?"

"I am both, mage. I contain all knowledge and memories of my creator up to the moment he created me, fifteen years ago."

"Fifteen years? Then… You have a son; he should have been about seven years old at the time of your creation."

"Correct. His name is Hugh."

"I'm him."

"I believe you. You look just like your mother. However, you are not one with the authorization to unseal this book. While I would love to help you, I'm not allowed. If you could get the real Canas to give you permission, things would go as smoothly as possible, but if this book is in your hands before mine, I can only draw the conclusion I am dead or incapacitated."

"Dead. You must've been one of his last projects, considering he's been pushing up daisies for fifteen years."

"Damn. This is hard," the vision said.

"No shit."

"I can keep the book from burning while you work it, but you'll need some blood. Do Lyn or Mark have descendants?"

"Actually," Hugh began, the absurdity of talking with a vision of his dead father failing to dawn on him, "Lyn's daughter is here, and Mark is too."

"Mark's blood would be more potent, but… He's Mark."

"Yeah," replied the son of the druid as he stood up, "Lemme just find Sue and a vial."

"Rath!" The twenty-something tactician screamed over the storm, tears stinging his eyes and murder on his mind. "What in Heaven and Hell is wrong with you? You're a monster!"

Twenty feet away yet barely visible because of the whirling snowstorm, Rath stood in front of Canas. The druid's wife was lain down in the increasingly-red snow. He had threatened to kill her unless Canas did some sort of charm, and then knifed her anyway. Canas let out a howl before launching beams of dark energy at the crazed nomad. Unfortunately, Canas had already made a fatal mistake: performing dangerous, seductive magical arts without being in a state of meditative calm. Even as he tossed darkness at his enemy, the same darkness swallowed him whole, leaving nothing behind.

Mark immediately flicked his last throwing knife Rath's way, cutting a thin red line along his neck. Not deep enough. Duck. Left. Swipe up. Jump. Step back!

Falling for Rath's feint, Mark leapt directly into an oncoming swipe, with a knife cutting dangerously close to his eye. Falling to his knees, Mark awaited his death. After several moments, Mark looked up.

Rath was on his knees, shackles of dark energy binding his hands behind his back and his feet one foot apart. An older lady, using the very same magic that consumed Canas, was standing where he had stood. In the opportunity the woman granted, Mark struck Rath over the head with the butt of his dagger, knocking him unconscious.

"My son," Nimue wailed, falling over the remaining body. "My beautiful daughter! Gone in an instant of madness and grief!"

Mark approached Canas' mother. "Lady Nimue… Is there anything I can do for you?"

The elderly druid looked up at him. This man, the tactician, had seen countless friends perish, had lost his closest friend first in love and then in life, and was currently bleeding out as the worst snowstorm in the last century was picking up even more momentum, yet he still offered his aid to a stranger. He was truly a kind man.

"I will use my magic to return their bodies to the earth, then care for his son. But I see you, Mark the Traveller, and I see what you will become. You have seen enough darkness to last a hundred lifetimes, and your reward was losing the one person you love above all others. I see you falling to darkness, and I am sure you already feel it taking you."

"I do."

"Just swear to me that, no matter how dark times may be, how hopeless and despairing you may find yourself, that you never completely let go. Magic is real. Gods are real. Hope is real. And as long as you hold on to hope, the hope that there is light somewhere, then the light within yourself will never be extinguished."

"What should I do with Rath?"

"That is up to you, tormented one. But allow me a piece of advice: every decision comes at a cost. Would you walk the path of darkness, or the path of the light?"

As Mark pondered whether to kill or spare the man who had murdered the love of his life, Nimue made her own decision: to lie about Canas' death in the snowstorm.

"Guardsman! The prisoner is having another psychotic break!" a beautiful, mature woman called, dodging fists. As backup arrived, Juno stepped back to let them restrain him. She had learned much about Rath's condition, but the revelations of his past were proving most difficult to decipher. She had connected most of the dots, leaving just two more questions for the man: what had triggered him to murder Lyn when she had claimed Rath's mind was steadily healing, and what had he forced Canas to enchant?

This was practically an anthology. I have much less time and writing motivation than I did when I started this nineteen months ago, so I'm cramming the important plot points into this chapter and the next to prepare for the climax and epilogue.