Private Tales When Fire Meets Shadow

[Vyx'aria]

The snow was a curse. Even under moonlight it gleamed too brightly, scattering its pale reflection across the slope like shards of glass. Vyx’aria’s red eyes narrowed beneath her cowl, her vision already strained by the accursed surface sun during the day. This ghostly light was only marginally more tolerable.

She moved regardless, a silhouette of midnight silk threading through the jagged treeline at the edge of the Wilds. The jungle had thinned here, clawing upward into the foothills of the Spine where stone overtook soil. She crouched near a frost-rimed boulder, one hand brushing against it to feel the grain of the stone. She could catch traces of the ancient designs anywhere. The rumors were true - there was a dwarven fortress somewhere nearby and Vyx’aria had made a career of butchering and enslaving dwarves.

Behind her, the mercenaries advanced in silence. Surface-born cutthroats, bought and broken to her will, their familiarity with the region the only reason she tolerated the stench of them. They knew the terrain. She knew the hunt.

They were ghosts tonight, weaving soundlessly between the trees and scree. No torches. No chatter. Only the press of breath and the hush of boots through powder.

She had no need to speak. Her commands had been given at dusk to trace the ridge, locate the mine, mark the patrols. Do not be seen. Do not be heard. If they failed, their deaths would be quiet. She required no dramatics.

Whatever enclave lay beyond this slope, it would not remain dwarven for long.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

If it had been night time, Vyx'aria would have seen the scout long before the others. Instead a whisper warned her of their return.

They would only have returned to the main host if they had seen something.

"We saw two goblins scouts."

A pity they had not learned sign language as any drow hunting party would have done.

The snow-crusted ridge trembled faintly as if the mountain itself stirred from a long slumber.

---

Deep below, in the cavernous halls carved into the Spine, Azrakar sensed intruders. His power was slowly returning after the prophecy had come to pass.

It was a ripple in the dark, the subtle scuttle of intruders threading through his domain.

The Hollow King sat upon his throne of blackened stone and living flame. The scarlet fires that cloaked him flickering brighter for a moment, casting long shadows across the assembled orcs and goblins who knelt in silence.

His obsidian form loomed, twelve feet of shadow and ember, the crown of flame upon his brow flaring.

"I am going to the surface,," he rumbled to himself, the words echoing through the vast chamber like distant thunder.

He rose slowly, the ground quaking beneath his weight, flames swirling into a cloak.

"My lord," grunted one of the orcs. They were all nervous since he had killed most of a tribe for crossing him. "You are still gaining your strength. You have not been..."

Azrakar raised his hand. The lights in the braziers rose.

"I know exactly how long it has been."

Azrakar strode into the deeper tunnels, flames licking the walls as he passed. He knew these mountains better than any dwarf ever had; their abandoned holds were mere gateways to his realm below.

The cloak of flame grew and suddenly a smaller shadow walked where the great demon had been.

---

A different scout returned another mile up the road. She looked confused.

"A... Another dark elf. He walked right up to us. Asked us to fetch our leader?"

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria blinked against the glare, jaw tightening behind her veil. Her crimson gaze throbbed with the strain of too much light. Her patience, already thin as ice, began to crack. There was no cover here. No canopy of fungal bloom. No comforting stone ceiling above. Only white, open exposure. A disgrace of a world.

When the first scout reports made her way, she sneered.

Goblins. Dwarves did not tolerate goblins. If goblins were ranging this close to the ridge, then…Perhaps the mines were empty. Her lips parted slightly in a grimace, the faintest twitch betraying the bloom of rage rising cold and fast in her chest.

The mine could not be empty. She had not come this far for scraps. She turned away from them without a word and pressed onward, faster now. Her movements remained elegant, but there was violence in the grace now. A predator stalking the edge of its cage.

A different scout returned another mile up the road. She looked confused.

"A... Another dark elf. He walked right up to us. Asked us to fetch our leader?"

Her gloved hand snapped across the scout's face in a backhanded blow, the sharp crack of it echoing off the stone. The scout stumbled, nearly falling to one knee in the snow, a red welt already blooming across her cheek.

Vyx’aria stepped forward, close enough that her shadow swallowed her whole. “I am not to be fetched,” she hissed, voice low, serrated. “And most certainly not by a male, dark elf or otherwise.”

Vyx'aria's eyes burned into her skull, unblinking. “If such a creature dares draw breath, he may present himself, on his knees, before Queen Vyx’aria.”

She turned her back on the scout, already done. “Go,” she said, a command without heat, without doubt. “Tell him.”

The scout fled down the slope, still shaking. Vyx’aria did not watch her go. She simply adjusted her cloak, inhaled once, and resumed her climb. The next one to irritate her would not walk away at all. Still, she was curious about this dark elf who apparently had himself a little following of goblins.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

A scout scrambled back down the slope, breath ragged in the thin air, cheeks flushed from more than cold.

She dropped to one knee before Vyx'aria, eyes wide with something between terror and awe.

"He... he comes, my Queen. Alone. And he carries something."

From the treeline above, a figure emerged. He was tall for a drow male, broad-shouldered beneath a cloak of dark wool lined with faint crimson threading.

His skin was the deep obsidian of the Underdepths, white hair bound back in a severe warrior's braid. His features sharp and aristocratic: suggesting that even though he was male he came from a high family. Crimson eyes glowed faintly, matching the intensity of Vyx'aria's own.

He moved with deliberate grace, unhurried, boots crunching softly through the snow. In his left hand dangled a severed tongue, still dripping blood.

Azrakar stopped ten paces away. This was close enough to talk whilst far enough to respect the reach of blades. It was good to pretend he cared about that.

He inclined his head respectfully whist keeping his eyes on Vyx'aria. No drow would leave an opening - even to their best friend.

He made a respectful gesture and offered a greeting in the tongue of the dark elves. It was perfectly polite, but strange. Strange because it was a manner of speaking from two thousand years ago. The last time he had encountered drow.

He lifted the tongue slightly, letting it swing.

"This belonged to one of your messengers. I understand the message, but I will not be summoned by a slave like that."

His crimson gaze swept slowly over the clustered mercenaries. They were a surface rabble, lightly armed. They were no match for true drow legions. He returned to lock his gaze to hers, unblinking.

"Where is your real army?" he asked. "And where are you leading these slaves?"

Beneath his boots there was a faint glimmer. A touch more snow was melting that there should have been.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria saw the tongue first. It dangled from his hand like a grotesque pendant, blood trailing lazy arcs into the snow. Intentional. A performance. But it was not the sight that unsettled her, it was the scent of him.

The wind shifted. And she inhaled.

Her breath caught. It was a scent she did not recognize, and certainly not Drow. It was something wilder, like heat beneath earth. Smoke curled around spice. A scent that didn’t belong to this world, yet nestled itself in her senses with a boldness that made her jaw tighten. It prickled behind her ribs and settled low, unwelcome and unforgettable.

Her pupils dilated. It wasn’t just unnatural, it was intoxicating. She said nothing. Did nothing. But she was acutely aware of the way her pulse had changed.

His voice bore the form of a dark elf prince, but the cadence and dialect was off. And the air bent strangely around him. Snow melted at his feet in delicate rings, as if his very presence scorched the earth.

Her eyes narrowed.

Above them, her archers watched in breathless stillness, her handpicked placements along the ridge, their weapons trained on his chest. Surface dwellers, but competent enough to die in place.

Vyx’aria’s expression did not change at his questions, questions that would have seen any regular male dark elf executed. But her grin came slow, glacial, and sharp. “A Dark Elf should know,” she said, voice smooth as silk, “that our kind do not expose our armies so obviously. Especially during the day.”

She let that hang in the air between them like the weight of an unsheathed blade. “Why don’t you make yourself useful, princeling? Lead me to the dwarven mines that are rumored to be here.”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

The false drow’s crimson eyes lingered on her a moment longer than courtesy allowed, drinking in the subtle flare of her pupils. He could almost feel the faint quickening of breath.

It was a long time since he had played games with mortals. A flicker of satisfaction passed across his borrowed features.

It was gone in a moment. His lips curbed into a thin smile that conveyed no warmth.

“Princeling,” he echoed. "Nothing so fine. My name is Az'a'drehk."

Would that do for a name? He wondered. Perhaps it should have carried more apostrophes.

"You have an army below the surface. Strike the dwarves. Attack from both directions."

He glanced over his shoulder. Were there a hundred drow moving on his caverns.

"I am afraid you are in the wrong place. I have a loyal but stupid force of goblins and orcs in the ruins ahead. No dwarves. You want to be three days east of here."

It would normally be a careful negotiation, he reminded himself. No one of true importance would be sent to leave the slave army. Some middling lieutenant. Still, a female of that rank would likely want to bring a rogue male to heel.

"I take you there and I'm allowed to leave afterwards?" he asked. "Who leads your true army. They should not pass through the orc tunnels below."

 

[Vyx'aria]

He held her gaze. Not in reverence. Not in fear. He looked at her like an equal. Like he had the right.

Vyx’aria’s eyes narrowed.

There had been only one male who could ever do that and live. One who could hold the gaze of a queen and not awaken the centuries of bloodlust carved into her bones.

This male was not him.

Her fingers flexed at her side, a faint twitch of restraint. She imagined the soft sound his tongue would make tearing free from his jaw. It would be elegant and perhaps she may even eat it to see if he tasted as good as he smelled. And still he stood there, offering her plans and strategy. “I do not need commanding advice from a man.”

The words left her coldly, razor-sharp in their simplicity.

She shifted her weight, posture unchanged but presence sharpening. He had made an assumption that there was an army behind her. She could not afford to correct him. Let him imagine a legion stirred beneath her. Let him believe she had legions of trueborn Drow sharpening blades in caverns just out of reach. Let the myth of her power march a step ahead of the reality.

“Take me to your force. Perhaps,” she said, her voice cool and unbothered, “we can strike at the dwarven stronghold together and share the spoils.”

She did not smile. She simply watched him, his scent still lingering in the cold air, his false features cloaked in borrowed nobility, and thought of how easily it would be done.

A clean strike. A blade drawn in front of his followers. His blood marking her claim to an army she desperately needed. His army would kneel not because they were loyal, but because she would be the new force in charge.

She could already picture the way his body would slump, the way the heat would leave it.

The thought calmed her. Almost.

 

[Azrakar]

“Advice? Clearly I was just talking out loud. Old habits die eventually up here.”

He gave a low bow, managing to give the impression of grovelling without lowering himself to it.

"If you make camp here for a few hours I can bring those that follow me," he offered. "Or come with me and bring a small retinue."

Azrakar met her stare again, steady but not pushing. He wanted to appear like a sellsword who knew the value of not looking weak.

“Spoils split fairly?" He didn't truly care for spoils. The opportunity to have a force of Drow serving him was too great to ignore.

 

[Vyx'aria]

She gave no sign of hesitation, only the slow tilt of her head, the arch of a single brow. “The spoils,” she said coolly, “depend on how useful you and, whatever little swarm follows you, prove to be.”

There was no warmth in her voice. Just fact, shaped like a dagger. “We’ll make camp. Return when your soldiers have caught up.”

She turned without ceremony, her cloak whispering against the snow. She did not wait for his reply.

---

Once his unnatural presence had slipped from the ridgeline, she raised her hand in a swift, silent gesture. Her warband scattered.

"Traps," she ordered curtly. "Fan them out in staggered rings. Surface roots, shallow pits. Nothing elaborate, just enough to make them collectively scatter if they try anything funny."

The mercenaries obeyed without delay, moving to lace the surrounding slope with snares and subtle hazards: trip lines tucked beneath frostbitten shrubs, spiked holes covered in powder, concealed caltrops scattered along the likely approaches. Between the terrain and their positioning, any large group would be bottlenecked through two narrow slopes, perfect for her archers. She didn't have vast numbers, but she knew how to take down forces far larger than her own.

“Archers to the eastern ridge,” she snapped to another. “Use the outcrop to mask the movement. If he circles wide, I want his heart skewered before he knows we saw him.”

She turned to her two remaining drow, Lysdania and Zhaeryl, the only ones she trusted for this expedition.

“Camp. High ground. Wind at our backs.”

The two nodded and took to the ridgeline with efficient grace, choosing a hollow where the firelight would be muffled but visibility of the pass remained clear. Within an hour, a modest campfire crackled.

A surface-born mercenary had dragged back a deer, crude but effective. Its meat now sizzled above the fire, the scent thickening the air.

Vyx’aria finished her final sweep of the perimeter. Every shadow had been memorized. Every sound catalogued. Every immediate area searched for spies or scouts. She sat last, only when all was as she willed it, lowering herself with the coiled grace of a serpent resting, not relaxing.

Lysdania was already chewing a sliver of roasted meat, smirking into the flames.

“He is rather pretty…and so tall for a male,” she said around the bite, careless and amused. “If you’ve no interest, I might take a turn with him. See if he bites.”

Vyx’aria took a slow drink from her canteen. Then turned her gaze on Lysdania. “Are you a blind halfwit, or merely suffering from bloodloss of the mind from the cold?”

Lysdania paused, blinked. The grin faltered. Vyx’aria continued, “Did you not hear his dialect? Did you not see the snow melting around his feet? Or did you not smell him?”

The fire cracked between them. Lysdania was silent now.

Vyx’aria set her canteen down and leaned slightly forward, her voice low and sharp. “We cannot allow him to learn that there is no army. Whatever that creature is, it is not Drow. Not truly. But if we are careful, if we play to his arrogance, we may use him.”

She let the silence press in, watched the flicker of understanding settle in her commander's eyes. “If his strength can win us a dwarven stronghold, so be it. We’ll keep the alliance.” Her smile returned, sharp, glinting. “And when the last stone is ours, I’ll carve open his throat in front of his followers. Let them see what becomes of false kings.”

She leaned back into the stone, firelight dancing against her cheek.

The scent of him still lingered. She breathed it in, then forced it down like a toxin she’d learned to master.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar watched her give a dramatic turn, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.

Once upon a time, had a general spoken to him in such a manner, he would have decimated their army to teach them a lesson. Then he would have exquisitely flayed them over several days just to make a point.

He had just left his realm for the first time in a thousand years. He needed to tread carefully. If he could not command an entire drow army then perhaps a handful would be useful alone, if he could tempt them into service. He liked her spite.

Azrakar left in the same direction he had approached from. He slipped into a hidden fissure, descending swift and silent into the mountain's gut.

The air grew hot, tunnels widening into vast halls. His form shifted, glamour melting away as he swelled to twelve feet of obsidian and flame, crown igniting atop his brow. Orcs and goblins scattered before him, bowing low.

"Guard the hidden passages into the deep roads. Send a few to search," he rumbled, voice like grinding stone.

"There could be a drow host moving through the area. Seal the forgotten passages. Let none slip through unseen."

When it came to the drow sending goblin scouts was only useful in one respect. They could monitor which of them did not return. No, they were better off sealing doors and defending his realm.

"I want a small war host."

The leaders of the tribes stood to attention. He knew they would look to compete to supply him with the finest honour guard. With him sitting on his throne the generations of orcs and goblins had turned on one another. Without an outside enemy the tribes had fought.

He allowed it, to keep their spears sharp. They needed to remember now that they were one force beneath his fist.

"A weak force. Expendable. A goblin scout screen. Orcs of low rank in small units. No tribe banners. They must not know our strength."

They scrambled to obey, axes and torches vanishing into the dark. Satisfied, Azrakar shrank back to his drow guise and climbed surfaceward.

He returned flanked by a handful of goblin archers. He walked past a trap on his way. Curious. He had forgotten that drow were not just spiteful and cunning. They were fearful, always watching for betrayal.

The human picket they crossed bristled at the presence of goblin kind.

He was led forwards to the fire where the drow crowded. The fire kept away the night's chill, but he knew the drow had no live of the light.

He offered another low bow, there was a flourish from another era.

"Where would you like my force placed?" he asked. "Ahead to lead us to the dwarven settlement?"

It wasn't much of a settlement. He didn't know what the drow were thinking. He had crushed the last great dwarven city in the region and added it to realm many years ago.

 

[Vyx'aria]

When he left his domain, her scouts vanished like smoke, discreetly shadowing the path Az’a’drehk had taken earlier. Their task was simple: observe and mark every entry point and movement that happened in his absence along the fissure from which he emerged. Goblins and orcs swarmed thick as flies, but they were rarely clever, and a slit throat was just as silent aboveground as it was below. Her people knew to hide the bodies and keep it quiet for as long as possible.

Vyx’aria sat silently, gazing out into the cragged expanse beyond the camp, lips pursed in faint thought. She had no legions tucked beneath the earth, no mighty bastion from which to summon spiders or war beasts, but she had patience in the game of war. She was operating on next to no intelligence on both this mystery man and the dwarven cities, and she had to close that gap immediately.

The air shifted. The camp stirred.

Az’a’drehk returned, and her eyes snapped toward him with slow, deliberate appraisal. He strode with that same calculated ease, his ragged collection of goblin archers fanning around him like a poorly trained ceremonial guard. The snow barely dared gather around his boots.

Vyx’aria was seated beside the fire, marrow slick on her fingers as she cracked open a roasted femur, sucking out the rich inner core with the casual dominance of a predator at rest. Her gaze flicked from him to his entourage, mocking, almost amused, and she made no effort to mask the chill of her judgment.

With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the bone into the embers, watching it hiss and blacken. “Sit, Az’a’drehk,” she murmured, voice silken and cool. “Join us at the fire.” Though you seem to have no need of it, she thought internally.

She leaned slightly, the flames gilding the edge of her cheekbone, her crimson eyes gleaming like polished glass. “You speak like nobility. What House cast you up from the depths, and what did you do to crawl all the way to the surface with your skin still intact?”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar moved to sit in the group. He perhaps didn't show quite as much deference as one would expect from a male who had survived in society. He managed to put on a little show, lowering his eyes as he sat down.

He didn't reach for food without permission.

Azrak shrugged, eyes reflecting the fire like banked coals.

“House Kilsett."

He took a gamble and named a house that fortunately still existed.

"I've been up here twenty-odd years now. Used to how sunlight burns. You won't get any favour for taking me back, if that's what you're thinking."

He glanced at her two drow companions, then back to their leader. She hadn't offered a name.

“Goblins found me half-dead in a cave. Thought to stab me whilst I slept. Now they work for me."

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria gave a lazy jut of her chin toward the fire, a silent gesture that he could eat if he wished…or dared. Her stare lingered on him a moment longer, her expression difficult to read. “Kilsett, eh?” she echoed, rolling the name across her tongue. “Is that the one always at odds with House Szyndar?”

Her expression never flickered. Internally, she almost chuckled. Szyndar, her long-dead pet spider, fat and venomous, who had once terrorized an entire dormitory.

She reached for a strip of meat and tore a bite with sharp teeth, eyes narrowing ever so slightly at him across the firelight. “You seem the ambitious and clever type, Az’a’drehk. If you’ve been nesting up here with your little goblin swarm all these years…” Her voice dipped with feigned curiosity. “Why haven’t you bothered to take the dwarven strongholds yourself?”

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrak inclined his head slightly. That crooked grin faded. He didn't reach for the food yet.

Azrakar knew a trap when he saw one. Perhaps he had lost some of his talent when it came to subterfuge.

“It wouldn't be my place to comment on politics my lady,” he said, voice smoother now. He thought back to what he knew.

"They fell to becoming a minor house so often the squabbles were frequent."

He met her gaze steadily, posture relaxed yet deferential, hands resting open on his knees. There was the slightest narrowing of his eyes. Once, Drow Matrons had thrown themselves at his feet begging for favours. They had slit the throats of their eldest daughters to appease him.

One of the other Drow was watching him carefully. She had been silenced by Vyx but she had been without a plaything in too long.

“As for the strongholds, I have scouted them for years. The dwarves once delved too greedily. Something terrible extinguished their old city. They mine carefully near the surface. Look at what I have," he said, glancing back at the goblins.

 

[Vyx'aria]

He had danced around the details of his House. Not a lie, but a deft sidestep and one Vyx’aria noted with interest. For now, she allowed it to pass.

She held out a sliver of roasted meat toward him, her hand steady, adorned in rings that shimmered faintly in the firelight. “It is disgraceful for a male to refuse a meal offered by a woman,” she said, voice smooth, cool, yet threaded with bite. “I understand the Surface has made you start to…forget some of our ways.” She added with a smile that was always the type to send a chill up the spine of most mortals.

She caught Lysdania still ogling him like the very meat that roasted. Vyx’aria let it happen. Perhaps this could work to Vyx’aria’s advantage if Lys could keep him distracted while she did more snooping.

She leaned back and continued, as if speaking of the weather. “If the dwarves are truly displaced, even a starving Drow could seize what remains with a force as paltry as yours.” Her gaze drifted lazily over the goblins behind him. “You don’t seem the type to overlook opportunity.”

She paused for a moment, “Does the thing that extinguished their city still lurk, I wonder?”

She watched him, expression unreadable. It was a safe probe. If the threat had been born of the Underrealm, she would have heard whispers. That she hadn’t… meant it was likely something else. Something she could use.

Azrakar

 

[Azrakar]

Azrakar reached forward to pluck a skewer with one hand. He bowed his head in proper deference before bringing it to his lips.

"My lady is generous," he said quietly, voice measured and respectful.

He kept his gaze lowered a moment longer than necessary, then lifted it to meet hers with calm steadiness.

For all their boasting, many drow females were like human lords. They boasted and threatened but even the dangers of the underealm failed to sharpen their minds. This one was sharp.

“You honour me with sharp questions. The goblins don't go that deep. I would not know if anything still lingers."

Azrak glanced toward the dark ridge, expression grave.

"My goblins refuse to go past certain gates. Who knows what it was by this point."

He returned his attention fully to her, folding his hands in his lap.

“Opportunity waits, yes. But I am not eager to spend every resource I have left. It is, after all, not very much. But it is yours to command.”

A faint, polite smile touched his lips. "I could show you some of the deep roads if you are inclined. But it would waste much time."