A single rune.

  A single rune can make all the difference between life and death.

  And for King Arsalan, it was death.

  Emboldened by his set of enchanted armor, King Arsalan of Tunda was known to lead his men straight into battle, carving open enemy lines as a one-man vanguard. While he had a retinue of shock troops behind him, their collective notoriety stemmed solely from the back of the large nobleman, who would barrel down the battlefield on a warhorse, bearing his trusty shield and mace.

  However, in the Spring of the Wise Owl, King Arsalan was struck down. In a single blow. In his prime and height of his powers. On the first day of his campaign against the Amirati Union.

  He didn't even make it through the first line of defence. He was intercepted on his approach by a single enemy, who swung a heavy glaive with such force that they cleaved the monarch in half.

  Arsalan’s armor yielded, snagged on the blade, warping and losing its structure, eventually being pulled like the fabric of a flag waving through the air. As the metal form was stretched flat, Arsalan's body was crushed in between. Blood, guts and flesh oozed out of the metal rag that was being swirled in the air on the tip of the glaive. His helm, unattached to the rest of the metal armor, protected his head that dangled awkwardly off the mass of metal and gore.

  Arsalan was removed from this world in an instant, his legend cut short with underwhelming swiftness. He died with his eyes open, shocked at his own mortality.

  Covered in their king's splattered blood, Arsalan’s troops stopped in their tracks.

  The dead king’s opponent, Gwazi, the lion-headed kobold knight roared in victory.

  Gwazi swung his glaive in a wide swoop, the king's malformed armor and body flug off the blade, hardened in the air, and crashed into a group of Tundian soldiers, knocking them off their feet.

  He raised his hand and cast a spell. Clouds quickly rolled over the overwise clear battlefield and a voice projected down from them, booming like the rumbling of lighting from afar, “Run, take your king, and don’t come back. You may have been allowed to run amok in your lands but don't think you can do so in ours. ”

  Gwazi was strong. Stronger than any man and most kolbalds, but he was better known for his curiosities as a mage rather than his powers as a warrior. Unlike humans, the kolbalds had a more innate and shamanistic connection with magic, and that just meant that most never bothered to learn about the more tedious and limited magic that stemmed from runes and formulas - which was all the humans had access to.

  And with limitation came both persistent ingenuity and ignorant pride, even the most wordly of rune masters scoffed at the idea that the kolbalds would be able to understand the complex magics that took lifetimes to develop.

  Complex was the human word to describe their magic. Precise, is how Gwazi would explain it. As humans underestimated the kobald understanding of magic, most kobolds underestimated the efficiency of human magic. While weaker in nature, human magic needed specific counters that were hard to answer on the fly. And the lack of understanding meant that early skirmishes were one-sided, with desperate futile displays of kobold magic giving the humans confidence to escalate to full-fledged conflict. As Gwazi, had heard.

  He had collected enough war stories and anecdotes to hypothesise, design, and apply a single rune to bypass the specific mechanisms of King Arsalan’s protection. Runes and magic circles were not inherently hard to make once understood, and if the whole army had the same protection magic as the king, the battle would have been one sided from the get go.

  Fortunately, for the kobolds, the monopoly of knowledge, and the necessity of a competitive edge between the different human kingdoms meant that magic tools were never mass produced and that the specific runes were hidden and concealed. In fact, the human effort to limit their competitors often outstripped their focus on advancing their own capabilities, a fortunate inefficiency for the kobalds.

  Upon hearing Gwazi’s announcement, the humans retreated quickly. Years of preparations for a single bloodly night. The death of one somehow struck harder than the many more that gave their lives to get Arsalan to this stage - the doorsteps of the Kolbald lands.

  While Arsalan was beloved as a warrior of legend, the peasants were sick of being levied in his wars, though the true driver of the quick retreat were the commanding nobles who didn't want to be away from courts, where a very different battle was to be fought over succession. Arsalan’s conquests had created an unparalleled empire that was about to fracture once the news of his death percolated through the lands.

  However, the death of Arsalan, the Greatest of his Name, was a catalyst of what was to come.

  And Gwazi, the hero, faded into relative obscurity, his legacy contained to that one moment in history. He was commanded to build a fortress in the valley where he led the Amarati defense and was granted the rule of the surrounding borderlands, as the Amir of the Ericlyes Valley.

  In the capital and in the annals of history, his victory was simplified from a feat of magical inquiry into a mere tale of heroic strength. His fortress, strong as it was, was built with such practicality and effectiveness that it never saw another invasion. And his rule ensured general prosperity that faded into the records, overshadowed by devastating famines and decadent feasts seen in other provinces.

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  In the end, Gwazi was trusted with the Union’s safety, yet was exiled to the borderlands to curtail the influence of his competency. Nor was a greedy king with unfathomable ambition, whose empire collapsed at the first loss of momentum. Gwazi was a footnote in Arsalan’s ending, and practically forgotten outside his province, an endnote in Amarate history for a tragic war that never occurred.

  Though arguing about the historical importance of events mattered very little to those living in the moment - whose lives would irrevocably change from the death of a single man, thousands of miles away.

  As the news of the king's death traveled, the various runecrafter found the news unsettling. How could someone outside of a runecrafting family figure out how the magic worked? What did the kolbalds use as a conduit? Living conduits were rare, Arsalan was one, power inherited through his mother's side - a minor noble family with some runecasting blood.

  However, most people assumed that shoddy maintenance or expired magic emberstone was the cause of the armor’s failure, putting the blame and the scrutiny solely on the royal runecrafters of Tunda. Who were told of the upcoming troubles by their friends and allies.

  The Solonovs knew they had to flee.

  Julija Solonova was enjoying her stroll in the garden when the news of Arsalan’s death first hit.She was about to sit down on a bench when her aunt swooped from behind, quickly ushering the younger woman back in the mansion.

  “Wait, Magda, what are you doing?”

  “Ww need to go inside now. We are packing everything up.”

  The two women paced quickly across the cobblestone path and through the Rose Garden, one that was first started by Julija’s grandmother, and whose care was passed along from one generation to another.

  “What? Why?,” Julija asked.

  “Your parents will explain some more when you get there. Your father and mother are already on their way from the workshop. Here, pack.”

  Magda had pulled Julija to her room. A large wooden chest sat in the middle of the room. “Put everything you can in here.” Magda pointed at the open chest, “Everything, anything of value. Don't worry about the weight.”

  Julija heard the litter patter of feet from the hallway, her cousin had run down the hallway, and a similarly large chest swooshed behind her. Used first as a bassinet, then enchanted for flight and nearly endless storage, these chests followed members of the family through childhood, school, marriage, family and death.

  One would only pack up when going through a significant life change, and something was seriously wrong for the whole family to be packing up at once. Still uncertain of what was going on Julija ran to her closet and started to throw her clothes and belongings into the chest.

  In with her books, the debutante dress that she no longer fit in, the letters from her cousins and friends. Her aunt had a different focus, finding everything of value that Julia overlooked - all of the jewelry, silk linens, and the gold decor and accent pieces - straight into the chest.

  Julia wondered if she could put her desk into the chest, and her aunt, as if reading her mind, appeared on the other side of the desk. The two lifted the desk in one go, shuffling over above the chest and dropping it.

  SHOOOP.

  The desk was wider than the chest, but was sucked in. It was amazing how quickly one could pack away a lifetime of belongings in a few hours.

  “Where should I go?” she asked her aunt, who was already starting to head to another room, “go to the courtyard, your parents are almost here. Help your cousins load the carriage.”

  Juliya hurried downstairs, her chest floating behind her. The metal rim glowed, the runes under the metal trim glowing through the thin coat of copper.

  She just about made it to the courtyard when her parents had arrived. Coming fast in on a horse drawn carriage, they slid into the courtyard drifting right next to the small group that awaited them.

  “Magda! Did you pack up the house?” Juliya’s mother, Kalina, yelled up into the house, she bounced out of the passenger seat and went around to tie the horse to a post.

  Magda popped out a window on the second floor. “Yes, I did, and everything in your room as well. We threw everything that we could grab in sight.”

  “Thanks!,” the two yelled back, her father, Dusan, pulled out a ring of keys, carefully picking a tiny red key as he walked to the back of the carriage.

  “Come,” he waved over to the children, “bring your stuff, we are going to pack everything up into the wagon here.” Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but he struggled to unlock the carriage, it took two or two attempts for him to open up the lock and open up the swinging door. All it was was an empty space, deceptively deep, with enough room for all the chests and then some.

  Juliya ran into her father’s arms, the floating chest that followed her zipped dangerously past the two, slamming into the back of the wagon. It made a groaning sound as it settled into the back corner.

  “What is going on, why are we packing up, where are we going?”

  “The king is dead my dear, and they think it is all our fault.” it was a simple explanation that begged more if time was a luxury. The last of the trucks floated on in. This time the various aunts and uncles who lived on the estate had arrived - they too with their own baggage that flew in quickly one after another.

  “We aren't welcome here, and to be honest, neither are the other families. The Foldfields and the Ankers are packing up their workshops right now - we'll meet them on the crossroads. Between all three families, we’d have enough money to charter a boat to a new life.”

  “Isn't this an overreaction?” aside from being an eavesdropper, Little Ivan had snark to him, the 5-year old stood with his arms crossed. Juliya wasn't certain if she was glad or horrified that he asked the question.

  Dusan, wasn't a perfect man, but in extreme stress, his fiery temper would cool down - a beneficial trait for the family head. He patted Ivan’s head, who brushed the hand off with not a little dismay and concern.

  “We need to leave. We were never welcome. Remember that King Arsalan was a child of a concubine who leveraged our talents to help skip the line of inheritance by tipping the scales for a challenge by combat. The main family will take over the throne and they won't forget, eye for an eye. They will avenge their lost brothers…”

  “Plus,” he said matter of factly, “we aren't fighters over here, just craftsmen and merchants. And we certainly don't want to be royalty. Arsalan must have gotten it from his father's side.” He patted the boy on his back, pushing him along, “Now, go to your mother, tell them to make a line, you'll be surprised to see how many people we can fit here. He turned to Juliya, quickly prescribing instructions to her.

  “Juliya, listen carefully, you need to take this key here, the one with the ruby, and open up the carriage. Get all of the family in there. Once you are done, close and lock it again and be ready for us to come back.”

  He handed her the keychain to the carriage, and picked out a specific key, one that had citrine embedded into the key’s bow, the elaborate metal plate attached to the shaft.

  “If anyyhing goes wrong, and you think you are in danger, use this yellow key on the carriage. Trust me, and trust what is inside.”

  “Now,” he turned around, “I need to help your mother with the rest of the packing. I’ll be back, and keep safe.” he cradled her head and kissed her forehead, “see you soon my dear.” And he rushed off into the house.

  Juliya stood there, looking at her father run up the stairs before looking at the yellow key, a single unknown rune carved into the gemstone.