Every single dead body that was currently marching in the dark, carving runes and building the dark throne, was animated by a tiny piece of Caster’s own shattered soul. He was the Rogue Vector.General Corin’s lie was accidentally, horribly true. Caster was the infection."I am the monster," Caster whispered. He curled into a ball on the floor. He wanted to die. He wanted the earth to open up and swallow him. "They were right to burn my books. They are right to hunt me. I poisoned the dead."Valen Cross stood over the broken old man.Valen was a killer. He was a spy. He had done terrible things in his life. But even Valen felt a cold shiver run down his spine at the sheer tragedy of Caster’s mistake.Valen looked at the map on the table. "Get up, Caster," Valen commanded. His voice was harsh, but it was not cruel. It was the voice of a soldier.Caster did not move. He just wept in the dust.Valen reached down, grabbed the collar of Caster’s dirty gray robes, and hauled the old man to

There were no neat, organized wooden shelves here. There were no bright blue paper scrolls. The things in this room were wild. They were dangerous.Sitting on stone tables were the skulls of giant beasts that had been extinct for a thousand years. There were heavy iron chains covered in dried, black blood. There were weapons made of human bone.This was the magic of the world before the Tower Council forced everything to be clean and polite. This was the brutal, raw magic of the first humans."We do not have much time," Valen said, checking his silver pocket watch. The ticking sounded very loud in the quiet room. "The patrols change in twenty minutes. If they find the sleeping guard, they will lock the entire building down.""I am looking," Caster said.He walked slowly past the tables. He ignored the bone swords. He ignored the giant skulls. He was looking for knowledge. He was looking for the answer to the Ash Warden.He moved his tired hands over piles of old, crumbling leather bo

Valen slowly shook his head. He had killed many men in his life. He had seen brave men and coward men. But he had never seen a man choose this kind of ending."It will not kill you, Caster," Valen warned him. His voice was strangely soft. "The ritual does not kill the cage. You will live. You will sit in the dark, feeling the monster claw at the inside of your brain forever. You will be buried alive in your own head.""I know," Caster said. He gave a tiny, sad smile. "It is a fair price to pay. I started the story. It is only right that I finish the sentence."Valen looked at the old man for a long time. The wind blew the gray dust across the street between them.Valen Cross, the ruthless killer, let out a heavy sigh. "You are a crazy old fool," Valen said. He pulled his black coat tight around his shoulders. "Where are you going to do it?""I need a place with living stone," Caster said. "A place deep underground, where the earth is natural and unbroken. Not white marble. Raw granite

Caster Spellbound crawled through the broken world. Far above his head, the Sage Tower was a ruined mountain of white marble. The greatest city in the world was crushed into a pile of dead stone. But down here, deep beneath the rubble, the real nightmare was still alive.Caster squeezed his thin, old body through a narrow gap between two massive, fallen rocks. The jagged edges of the stone tore at his dirty gray robes. They cut his arms and scraped his shoulders. He did not stop. He did not cry out. He just kept pulling himself forward.His breathing was loud in the small, tight space. Hah. Hah. Hah. It echoed off the dark walls.The air down here was terrible. It was suffocating. Every time Caster took a breath, he tasted thick, dry ash. It tasted like old metal and burnt bones.This was not just dust from the falling buildings. This was latent ash-magic. It was the heavy, sick energy of the Ash Warden’s domain. It clung to Caster’s skin like wet mud. It made his eyes burn. It mad

"Stop," Caster begged. He lowered his head. He covered his ears with his right hand, keeping his bleeding left hand over the circle. "Stop, please. I know what I did."But the ritual did not care about his begging. The ritual demanded the whole truth. More figures stepped out of the fog.Ten. Twenty. A hundred.They formed a massive ring around the glowing circle. They surrounded Caster.There were old men whose land Caster had taken to build magical testing sites. There were young women whose minds he had erased when they learned too many secrets about the Tower.And then, the faceless ones appeared. Hundreds of people made entirely of dark gray dust. They had no eyes or mouths. They were the ordinary citizens of the lower Rings. They were the people who had died in the Ashfall storms over the last twenty years. They had died because Caster built the ancient tether. They had died because of his arrogant mistakes.The phantoms did not attack him physically. They did not carry swords