Wings of Snow

Norivun² confronts Michas Crimsonale,⁹ who reveals that his father overheard King Novakin⁵ speaking in hushed tones to someone a full season ago, ordering that something 'needed to die' before his plans could begin. The encounter left a smell of rot in the air. A month later, the first Isalee field died.

Norivun² pieces together that his father⁵ hired a warlock from the other realm to create the veil suppressing the orem, all to manufacture a food crisis that would justify invading the Nolus continent. The missing fae in the castle were sacrifices to fuel the warlock's dark magic.

Norivun² also learns the king⁵'s hunting fae are scouring the continent for Ilara,¹ and he discovers Georgyanna¹⁰ has been torturing servants with her manipulation affinity. He forces his fiancée to release Daiseeum from a psychic vise that made the servant believe her head was being crushed, then makes plans to compensate all the families Georgyanna¹⁰ has harmed.

Following the letter Ilara¹ hid on the beach, Norivun² and his guards mistphase to the Adrall Temple moments after Drachu³'s betrayal. A battle erupts between Norivun² and the Lochen king,³ complicated when Tylen⁸ reveals himself as a null — a fairy who can strip others of their magic with a touch.

Tylen⁸ brushes Norivun,² disabling all his affinities, and Drachu³ escapes via portal key. Norivun² takes Ilara¹ and Cailis⁶ to the Cliffs of Sarum, where Cailis⁶ reunites with their family. Then Norivun² and Ilara¹ retreat to an inn in southern Mervalee.

There, Ilara¹ confesses she is ready; they seal their mate bond completely, exchanging mating marks of three small stars on their shoulders. Ilara¹'s violet-tinged eyes appear when her wings manifest, and she learns to summon and banish them at will, though the sight of her white feathers disturbs Norivun² in ways he cannot articulate.

In the Nolus capital, while Norivun² and his party enter the city to seek help from Bavar Fieldstone,¹³ Ilara¹ collapses mid-stride. Drachu,³ from somewhere in the realm, yanks on all her affinities simultaneously — life, air, fire, warrior, and wings.

She convulses, her wings vanish, and her heart slows dangerously. Norivun² cradles her, helpless as her pulse thins. Bavar¹³ summons a healer named Cora from the other realm, who administers a potion typically used for fae lands withdrawal.

The potion reverses the magical drain, but Cora warns they must carry more vials. Ilara¹ survives, yet the event proves Drachu³'s tether is not just political leverage but a lethal weapon. He can kill her remotely, and they have no immediate way to stop him. The pendant must be reclaimed or destroyed.

Using scrying magic powered by a shell from Drachu³'s house, Norivun² locates the Lochen king³ in Vemil Brasea, the capital beneath the Adriatic Sea. The party mistphases underwater, cloaked by Norivun²'s illusion and breathing through air bubbles. They find Drachu³ in his palace bedroom, engaged with two concubines in his fish-like scaled form.

As they draw near, Ilara¹ falls under Drachu³'s thrall again — the pendant compels her to desire him. She breaks free from her guards and caresses the king³'s stomach before Norivun² rips her away. A vicious battle ensues as Drachu³ uses Ilara¹'s affinities to attack, dispelling the guards' air bubbles.

Norivun²'s dragon form destroys the chamber's walls. In the chaos, Norivun² seizes the pendant and tears it from Drachu³'s neck just as Ilara¹ collapses unconscious, water filling her lungs. They escape via mistphase seconds before trident spears impale them. Back at the inn, Norivun² administers Cora's potion and revives Ilara.¹

Bavar Fieldstone¹³ introduces them to the Fire Wolf,⁴ a powerful supernatural hunter from Earth who specializes in finding elusive solutions. After a tense negotiation involving posturing and a fairy bargain, the hunter⁴ agrees to investigate the dark magic in Isalee's fields for three thousand rulibs, half up front.

They travel to the dead field in Isalee, where the Fire Wolf⁴ plunges his hand into the soil and identifies the veil as dark magic created by a warlock — a sorcerer who fuels power through living sacrifices.

Ilara¹ makes the connection: the missing Solis fae were murdered to create and sustain the veil, and the rotting smell she detected near her attack came from the warlock himself. The hunter⁴ warns that warlocks are among the deadliest beings he has ever faced, and destroying the spell will require lava rock from the underworld and a complex Latin incantation.

The Fire Wolf⁴ portals the group to Norway in the Earth realm, where they meet Sven,¹¹ a 284-year-old sorcerer obsessed with warlocks because his own father became one. After restraining them with blaze-bands as a security precaution, Sven¹¹ apologizes and lets them search his vast library.

Ilara¹ discovers a chapter titled 'How to Create and Counteract a Veil of Death.' The counter-spell requires lava rock from the Isle of Malician in the underworld. The Fire Wolf⁴ obtains the rock and meets them a week later in the Isalee field. There, joined in a circle and stripped of their magical Shields, they channel all their power as the Fire Wolf⁴ chants Latin and cleaves the writhing black heart of the veil with an underworld ax.

The dark netting disintegrates. But as the bargain marks on Ilara¹'s and Norivun²'s wrists vanish, the warlock materializes before them — gray-skinned, mottled with red veins, enraged that his spell has been destroyed.

Norivun² learns from Balbus and Haisley that Daiseeum has been taken — likely the warlock's next sacrifice. Using Daiseeum's clothing and his yellow crystals, Norivun² scrys for her and finds her chained to an altar in a castle dungeon beneath a stained-glass window.

He mistphases the entire group directly into the chamber as the warlock raises a blade above the servant's chest. Ilara¹ flies at the robed figure with her warrior speed, dodging curse after curse, while Norivun² shifts into his dragon form and fills the chamber with fire. The warlock vanishes before the flames consume him, and the underground stonework begins collapsing.

The party escapes with Daiseeum, who is hysterical but alive. Norivun² assigns her a permanent guard, and they return to the Nolus capital to recover. The encounter proves the warlock is still hunting and that the king⁵'s conspiracy continues despite the destroyed veil.

The warlock's attack in the Isalee field comes when the entire party is exhausted and drained from the counter-spell. He moves like the wind, swinging a blade at Ilara,¹ slicing the Fire Wolf⁴'s belly deep enough to expose blood, and raining curses so fast they can barely dodge.

Norivun²'s shoulder is grazed by a spell that would have obliterated his heart. With their magic gone and flight impossible, the guards attempt to surround the warlock but are too slow. The Fire Wolf,⁴ bleeding heavily, shouts for everyone to join hands.

As curses rain down, they grasp one another, and the hunter⁴ activates a portal key. They vanish and slam into the ground near the Whimseal clock tower. The Fire Wolf,⁴ still bleeding, declines a healer and portals back to Earth, his work complete. Norivun² owes him a life debt.

After four days of recovery in the Nolus capital, Norivun² proposes to Ilara¹ naked in their inn room, then kneels properly and asks her to be his eternal wife — a binding so absolute that not even the king⁵ can annul it. She accepts through tears.

They hold a small ceremony on a cliff overlooking the Adriatic Sea, with only Norivun²'s four guards and a local officiant as witnesses. The officiant uses an ancient elf-woven sealing cloth and binding stone, chanting in dead elvish before declaring them sealed before the gods and universe.

Silver marks — a circle with connecting swirls and stars — ink themselves onto their fingers. A burst of starlight flashes across the daytime sky, which the guards recognize as divine approval. Norivun² tells Ilara¹ it is time to return home and confront his father.⁵ She agrees, fierce and ready, her magic fully restored.