The Witch-King's Shadow
Prologue: The Sealing
The air smelled of burning flesh and iron. High Priest Veldros of Azura stood over the broken body of the witch-king, his golden robes stained with blood – not his own, but that of the hundred priests who had died to bring the monster to his knees. The war had lasted a decade. Fields were salted. Cities lay in ruins. And now, at last, the abomination that had called forth legions from Hell lay chained in sacred sigils, his once-mighty form reduced to a bleeding husk.
"You cannot kill me," the witch-king rasped, his voice like grinding bones. "I am eternal"
Veldros pressed his seal-stone against the sorcerer's forehead. "No. But we can bury you."
The ground split open—not in earth, but in reality itself. A howling void swallowed the witch-king whole.
And for twenty years, the continent knew peace.
THE LAST WITCH OF BLACKVALE
Twenty Years Later
The corpse wouldn't stop screaming.
It was hanging upside down from the oak tree, its throat slit ear to ear, yet its mouth kept twisting into wet, gasping shrieks. A hex. Had to be. Only witchcraft made the dead sing.
Captain Dain of the Azuran wiped his sword clean, his breath fogging in the dawn chill. Around him, his men –hardened witch-hunters in silver-plated armor—shifted uneasily.
"Cut it down," Dain ordered. "Burn it. Then we ride." One of the younger hunters hesitated. "Captain… that's the third this week. They're taunting us".
Dain didn't answer. He knew. The Killings had started a month ago—farmers, merchants, even a noble's son—all butchered in ways that defied nature. A message. A calling card.
The witches were back.
And if the rumors were true, they weren't just hiding anymore. They were hunting.
The Shadow Court
Deep beneath the ruins of Blackvale keep, where the air tasted of mildew and old blood, the last coven gathered.
Ten women. Ten survivors.
At their head stood Lirya the Hollow, her once-beautiful face now a latticework of scars—gifts from Azura's torturers. She traced a skeletal finger over the map of the continent, her voice a whisper.
"The seal weakens. The King's voice grows louder". A young witch, Sylva, frowned. "The priests guard the prison. We don't even know where—"
"We will rip it from them" Lirya interrupted. She lifted a vial of black liquid—blood but not human. "The Inquisition comes for us. Good. Let them bring their hunters…" Her lips peeled into a smile. "We will give them a war".
The Prince's Gambit
In the gilded halls of Karthos, second-greatest of the four kingdoms, Prince Varys watched the reports pile up on his desk. Witch sightings. Missing villagers. And, most interesting of all—
Whispers that Azura's High Priest had begun sleepwalking, his feet bleeding as though he walked on knives.
They are losing control, Varys murmured. His spymaster, a gaunt man named Crell, nodded. The witches grow bold. And our… allies in the north grow impatient. Varys steepled his fingers. His father, the king of Karthos, was a coward. He still bowed to Azura, even after twenty years of their heavy taxes and purges. But Varys?
He saw an opportunity.
"Send word to Duke Malrik," he said Tell him it's time. And burn this letter after. Crell hesitated My prince… if we are wrong about the witches—
"Then we will all burn," Varys said cheerfully. "But better fire than chains, don't you think?"
The Blood Moon Rises
That night, in a village whose name would be forgotten by dawn, a child's nightmare came true.
The ground split.
Not much—just a crack, thin as a hair. But from it seeped a sound like a thousand insects chittering. And then...
A hand, skeletal and clawed gripped the earth. The witch-king did not rise that night. Not fully.
But somewhere, in the dark between worlds, he laughed.