The Emperor's Enemy

A newspaper article introduces the centuries-long Storm Wars between two rival powers on the world of Antichthon: the Democratic Commonwealth, which governs the continent of Westmere, and the Draconis Empire, which rules the continent of Azote. The continents are separated by the dangerous Moor Ocean. The article celebrates Zora Ravenal, a Northern hunter known as the Bear of the North, for capturing Tarantula, the Emperor’s most powerful Royal Mage and trusted right-hand man. Royal Mages are elite Imperial warriors who wield destructive elemental magic, while the Commonwealth relies on rare Knight Mages who can neutralize those powers.

The newspaper reports that Zora has survived the deadly Iron Ritual, a procedure used to create Knight Mages, joining the only other known survivors, twins Axel and Ella. During her knighting ceremony, Zora expresses confidence that the Commonwealth can defeat the Empire through its surviving technology, particularly target-seeking missiles. She recalls how the commonwealth’s ancestors rebelled against Imperial oppression and promises victor in the continuing war. The article concludes by reporting that Tarantula is being held in Zora’s private quarters, where she claims to punish him each night.

An article from the Imperial newspaper, The Excelsior Gazette, presents the Draconis Empire’s opposing account of the Storm Wars. It praises High Emperor Aleksander the Sadistic for expanding imperial influence into Westmere and dismisses the Commonwealth’s report that Tarantula has been captured by a human woman. Aleksander publicly denies that his most powerful Royal Mage has fallen into enemy hands, suggesting that the Commonwealth does not understand the strategic game being played. The article reinforces his reputation for arrogance and confidence by recalling an interview in which he declared that whoever wins the Storm Wars will control Antichthon and that he would “own the world” because he “never lose[s]” (4).

Zora Ravenal, a hunter from Westmere’s isolated North Commune, has spent two months training with the Commonwealth’s Crimson Army at the Scorpion Hole, a military base in the desert Middlelands. She joined the army after Tarantula murdered her best friend, Aurora, and threatened her mother’s life. Zora hopes to defeat the Draconis Empire, whose continuing war has contributed to food shortages in her northern homeland. Accompanied by Squire, her tiny pygmy owl who was magically gifted the ability to speak, she participates in a training run through Scorpion Valley.

During a run, a giant dire scorpion, one of Westmere’s magically mutated and exceptionally dangerous creatures attacks the recruits. It kills one soldier and poisons another, Kane. When Kane’s by-the-book military training fails, Zora relies on her hunting instincts to kill the beast, briefly experiencing an unexplained vision of the Barren Forest during the confrontation. Despite his earlier insults about her Northern upbringing, she carries the poisoned Kane back to base.

Zora is then summoned to meet Marshal Kalen Reeves, the elected leader of the Commonwealth and highest military authority. On the way, they encounter the prisoner Tarantula, who taunts Zora about Aurora’s death. He is escorted by Shadow Swords, elite Commonwealth soldiers who protect the Marshal and operate military aircraft. Tarantula wears shackles and a diamond-studded collar believed to suppress his storm magic. When Zora punches him, a Shadow Sword activates the collar’s additional electrical restraint, forcing him to the ground. The encounter also introduces the mysterious Mist, a phenomenon that appeared centuries earlier and disrupts functioning technology, limiting the Commonwealth’s use of its surviving machines.

In her meeting with the Marshal, Zora refuses any reward for saving Kane, instead demanding to undergo the dangerous Iron Ritual. The procedure has an extraordinarily low survival rate, but those who survive ordinarily develop the defensive magic of a Knight Mage, allowing them to neutralize the elemental storms wielded by Imperial Royal Mages. The Marshal reluctantly agrees.

In a sterile room, Zora is strapped to a gurney. Her blood is replaced with a magical, blood-like substance. During the agonizing procedure, she glimpses an unfamiliar emerald figure, and the unusual silver scar on her face burns. She eventually loses consciousness but awakens alive, astonishing the soldiers who had apparently presumed her dead. The Marshal informs her that she must pass one final test before officially becoming a Knight Mage.

The Marshal leads Zora to a subterranean chamber to test her newly acquired abilities. Knight Mages are supposed to create magical Shields that neutralize the destructive elemental powers of Royal Mages. The Marshal instructs Zora to form a magical Shield and neutralize the storm magic that will emerge from a spout in a mirrored wall. After hearing agonized screams from someone apparently being tortured behind the mirror, Zora is blasted with icy water that begins to flood the room. Her Shield fails to stop it, and the chamber begins to flood.

As Zora becomes submerged, she senses a strange connection to a presence behind the mirror. Instead of stopping the water, she unconsciously manipulates it, creating a cyclone. The Marshal stops the test and reveals that the Iron Ritual has produced an unprecedented result: Zora has developed the offensive abilities of a Royal Mage rather than the defensive powers of a Knight. Royal Mages can wield three known types of elemental storm magic—snow, wind, and water—and Zora possesses an affinity for water. The Marshal refuses to explain who was behind the mirror or how the magical water was produced.

The Marshal orders Zora to conceal her abilities and publicly pretend to be an inexperienced Knight Mage struggling to develop a Shield. Even the twins, Axel and Ella, who are the Commonwealth’s only surviving Knight Mages, must remain unaware of the truth. During their private conversation, Zora reveals her previous encounters with Emperor Aleksandra and Tarantula, including Aurora’s murder, her mother’s kidnapping, and the threat still hanging over her family. The Marshal concludes that Tarantula’s captivity presents an opportunity to break the military stalemate between the Commonwealth and the Empire.

The Marshal assigns Zora a covert mission code-named “Quest”: stay close to Tarantula, ostensibly as his student, and use him to find a critical Imperial asset. When Zora objects to the danger, the Marshal slaps her and invokes the threats against her mother and homeland to compel her cooperation. Zora reluctantly accepts the mission, although the asset’s identity and the full plan remain undisclosed.

Two weeks after surviving the Iron Ritual, Zora has settled into life as a newly knighted Mage at the Scorpion Hole. Her routine includes physical training, helicopter flights, secret water-magic lessons with the Marshal, and evenings with Axel and Ella. Zora has made little progress controlling her offensive water magic. Her public identity remains that of an inexperienced Knight Mage. As her secret mission begins, the twins inform her that Tarantula has been assigned as her new training partner.

Zora finds Tarantula waiting outside her room. He arrogantly demands she bow to him, provoking another hostile confrontation. When Axel attempts to intervene, Tarantula uses wind magic to choke him. Zora attacks Tarantula in response, but Ryse, a Shadow Sword serving in the Commonwealth’s elite military ranks, activates the remote-controlled shock collar around Tarantula’s neck. Ryse gives Zora the remote control, allowing her to manage the dangerous prisoner assigned to her care.

Later, in her room, Zora looks through her mother’s journal, which contains writing in a language she cannot understand and illustrations of elemental magical symbols. A small portrait falls from its pages, depicting a man with an ouroboros tattoo—a serpent consuming its own tail—around his eye. A love poem is written on the back, leaving Zora uncertain about the man’s identity and his connection to her mother.

Tarantula moves into Zora’s private quarters, forcing the enemies to share a living space as part of the Marshal’s plan for him to train her. Their first night becomes a sleepless confrontation. Tarantula repeatedly insults Zora’s Northern upbringing and lack of formal education, while she retaliates by throwing a book at him and activating his electrical collar. 

The next morning, the two go for a run, which ends with Zora shoving Tarantula to win the race back to the base. Zora later asks for more restraints from the Marshal, but her request is denied. The Marshal insists that Tarantula, whom she instructs Zora to call Sazha, has agreed to provide training in exchange for a pardon and the two must learn to work together.

Back in their shared room, their hostility continues. Zora threatens Tarantula with a knife and refuses to treat him with the respect he demands, while he responds with amusement and increasingly provocative remarks. Their confrontation shifts between threats, insults, and arguments about sexual experience, establishing an uncomfortable intimacy despite their open hostility toward one another.

The narrative flashes back eight years, when a 15-year-old Zora is in the northern Barren Forest near her home. A boy her age, who speaks with a strange, formal accent, insults her for kissing another boy. Zora confronts him, and they fight violently; she breaks his nose, and he bites her neck, leaving a permanent scar. The boy then attacks her with storm magic, revealing that he possesses the supernatural powers associated with the Draconis Empire.

The boy is identified as High Prince Aleksander, the future emperor. His infamous Royal Mage, Tarantula, appears at his side. Zora’s mother arrives and pulls her away before their confrontation can become even more deadly. As they flee, Aleksander threatens Zora, promising that she will eventually beg for his mercy.

Back in the present, the tension between Zora and Tarantula intensifies in their shared room. After Tarantula mocks her family, Zora shocks him. Although the electrical punishment appears painful, his reactions are often unsettling as if he enjoys the pain. Their arguments repeatedly escalate into physical confrontations.

The next day, when a newspaper circulates an illustration celebrating Zora’s capture of Tarantula, he becomes furious at the public humiliation. Their confrontation continues during a run through the desert, where violence and unwanted physical attraction complicate their interactions. Tarantula then brutally attacks Zora with his magic under the guise of training, mocking her for her own weak and uncontrolled powers. Her official training with the Marshal proves equally frustrating.

Later, trying to avoid Tarantula, Zora picks a lock inside the military hangar and discovers a concealed hallway containing portraits of former Commonwealth Marshals. Although the Commonwealth presents itself as a democracy whose leaders are elected, Zora notices that every Marshal pictured belongs to the same family. The hallway leads to a circular rotunda filled with bronze sculptures of the Marshal’s ancestors. Its floor contains a pattern resembling a periodic table, with the symbols C, N, and O highlighted. Zora also discovers a locked door threaded with copper and zinc wires, behind which she hears an unexplained buzzing sound. Before she can investigate further, she is forced to flee when someone approaches. Zora runs directly into a suspicious Tarantula, leading to another tense exchange, before finally returning to her room and falling into an exhausted sleep.