The man they called Iceheart watched with silent satisfaction as his enemy's river was cut in two.

Risen upon the highest of hills in this sacred land, he loomed thousands of feet over the Grand Confluence where Peacewatch, Howler, and Widowmaker fleets eradicated the remnants of the Sapphire blockade. His soldiers cheered along the cliff face. Werner permitted them their celebration, raucous and unbecoming as it was. Their volleys of stone and flaming arrow secured this victory. A taste of triumph without the aftertaste of pain would keep them hungry.

Though he shared it with nobody, Sir Werner Bearbreaker even allowed himself a smile. Nobody would weaponize his emotions against him ever again. He would be as invulnerable as his gray meladonite plate. Let them think his heart pure ice and he was the archlord of their fear. Werner nodded to himself, surveying the wide berth that even his sycophants gave. Let them fear him. Fear led to more fealty than love. The victory of his forces over Alexia Bluerose's adoring armies proved this.

Yet, no matter how thick his armor, emotion Werner felt as he stood upon the precipice of his own lordship. Soon, he would never be questioned or ordered around by his buffoon brother. He was already tasting the potential new names he would claim as he became lord of this land. Yet none tasted so sweet as the one his own brother had given him in childhood: Iceheart.

His secret smile twisted into a sour sneer. Soon the Sapphire would feel the ice of his heart as he carved his way into history.

Iceheart's blockade was more beautiful than the great tree above him and its billions of flowers. The Purple Owl, the Red Spider, and the Man Wrestling the Bear would suffocate the Sapphire encampment by strangling resupply. The Arax and the LaGrett had brought cognitive-affectomancers. The last few desperate Haliae and Pinarus boats would be capsized or burnt. The first pillars of smoke reached into the sky as his forces pillaged Bridgetown and burnt the surrounding countryside.

What a beautiful day!

The sun shone atop Goddess Hill in Mirrevar, breaking through the gaps in Covademara's canopy. To the north, in the flowery fields, the Sapphire forward camps had fallen and Peacewatch marched east across Mirrevar toward the stranglehold where a few thousand scared Horned Apes and Sentinels were trapped inside their meager palisade. They had no savior among them. Their ancient witch was ruined and alone and the bitch that had broken Ferrickton was gone from Mirrevar. They were little more than rats locked in a cage surrounded by bears. He would break them in his mighty hands.

All these years suffering under his brother, wishing he were born first, praying that the divinedamned dunce would choke on a chicken bone would at long last be at an end. Mirrevar truly was the land of dreams.

Iceheart stifled a laugh. Divinedamned Zander of Mirrevar and his piece-of-shite squire. He'd dreamt of the bastard's death near as much as for the buffoon's. But the idealistic idiot and his ugly bootlicker had surpassed Werner's wildest dreams, delivering him Mirrevar on a golden platter. But this dish only got sweeter the more Werner tasted it. The bastard had lost his dark whore. He hoped the Sapphires threatened to kill the stupid bitch.

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Her death would be the cream atop the Mirrevar pie.

A beautiful day, indeed.

Werner Bearbreaker breathed deeply the scent of his victory. He allowed himself a moment to savor the certainty of his triumph then opened his eyes and went back to work. Mirrevar wasn't going to conquer itself.

*************

Elianor Silverglow struggled. Struggled to breathe. Struggled to move. Struggled to everything. She struggled to conjure a faint light on the tip of her wand so she could see herself struggle. She struggled to awaken her broken heart in a broken world full of broken dreams. She struggled to find a reason to exist.

She didn't care enough to sigh as her weak light faded. Elianor herself faded, hope bleeding from her as surely as her life did. She tried to muster anger at Maleon Stonebreaker for ruining her life a second time. Nothing. She tried to muster sadness for Conrad's death. More nothing. Elianor tried to channel the purpose given her by Alexia Bluerose. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Elly slumped back into her bed and curled into a ball. Nothing. That was all that was left. She tried to remember being something. Beautiful, talented, promising. These all felt so 'once upon a time' that it felt like they'd happened to somebody else. Memories of this other woman left behind naught but the bitter taste of broken promises. Like a man that said he'd love you forever and then chose his hate for someone else over you.

Instead of a life full of promise, what remained was the final stop at the end of a series of failures. The battle for Mirrevar marched forward because her mistakes. She'd allowed Conrad to lead a doomed assault. She let Alexia Bluerose leave. She did nothing as the power-hungry narcissist Aldius ruined everything she and Conrad had worked to achieve for the last decade. It was all meaningless now. Elianor Silverglow was in the twilight of her life, with nowhere left to go and nobody left to care about. What did it matter?

She couldn't channel the pride she used to feel about protecting the eastern shores of the Eagle River from men like Werner Bearbreaker. That woman was gone. All she left behind was a withered flower too long deprived of light. Every petal fallen off, the stem bent and broken, the roots all but dead.

Nothing mattered anymore. Not justice. Not empathy. Those went into the dark with the shining woman she had been. Elly had seen Aldius's prize. Another beautiful woman who lost her luster, the little girl that was responsible for Conrad's death. But neither condemnation nor compassion found its way through the empty shell of Elianor Silverglow.

She did the exercises. She inhaled. She exhaled. She tried to awaken something of the person she had been long, long ago. But Elly only felt numb. Numb nothingness. Her body remained but everything else was gone. Everything that made her faded, like a dying woman clinging to the last rays of light before the dark. She couldn't care about Aldius's captive. She couldn't care about anything.

She sank deeper into her bed. Perhaps tomorrow she would rise and try again. Probably not.

Elianor had one frail thought tinged by something other than nothingness. Like every other soul in the Great Eagle encampment, she hoped that today would be the day their savior returned. If only Alexia were back, Elianor could rise and end her life the proud woman she had spent it.

A mirthless chuckle emerged from the hollow space between her lips. Word from Sapphirica was that Alexia had gone on an expedition to the Mahogany Isles. The reports of why and for how long were confusing, but the only thing that mattered was that she wasn't here. Their savior had abandoned them. Now, Iceheart knocked at the door.

Elianor Silverglow looked down at the precipice and waited to die.

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