Last night came a vision I could no longer ignore: The Divine City shook, lurching violently from its place in the sky. I could hear the screams of the citizens down below, crying for the dragons to save us as we hurtled toward the earth. 

The Divine Tower toppled, and I with it. The floor gave out beneath me and I crumbled into the ruin, watching in slow motion as the pendant I wore around my neck, the one that held the power of my ancestors, hit the stone and shattered into a thousand pieces—then we crashed into the earth. 

Dust rose from the rubble where we landed, the quiet of a thousand dead. I tried to stand, to survey the ruins of the Divine City that lay all around me. I tried not to think about the pendant and the magic that was lost. Then I heard their voices: The sounds of the demons we left behind—the seething that screeches silently through their teeth.

It is said the demons once chased us into the sky—that they consumed the cities, then the continents, then the world until all that remained were the mages. It is said our ancestors gathered in the Divine City—that one from every order lifted their wand to the tower and cast a spell, 16 orders moving their lips as one. 

It is said our ancestors moved the very crust of the earth, that we saved ourselves from the demons by ripping the Divine City from the rest of the world and raising ourselves into the sky. It was said that our spells were designed to fail. That the Divine City would one day fall. That we would return to the earth we left behind. That we would save what we could not save before.

When my eyes opened, I was drenched in sweat, my heart racing. I took to the window of the Divine Tower, searching for some proof of my dream, but we were still suspended in the sky, still lost in the fog. My hands searched for the pendant around my neck and found it intact, the magic of the Mage Queen still secured beneath my robe. 

Still, I could not shake the vision. I could not shake that memory from the future.

I put on my hard leather belt of anger, my demonhide boots, and my linen gloves. Then I called the council. It has been more than a thousand years since we invoked the Ministry of Mages and called for an assembly of our city’s 16 orders. Will they even remember their duties? Will they remember the roles passed down to them by their fathers? Will they don the robes of their order and the rings of their ministries? Will they remember the spells they once cast?

Will you, dear citizens of the Divine City, believe that after so many years of peace and prosperity, the spells that have bound us to the sky have faltered? That the legends we heard as children are true?

I pray you do. 

Last night came a vision I could no longer ignore: The Divine City shook, lurching violently from its place in the sky. I could hear the screams of the citizens down below, crying for the dragons to save us as we hurtled toward the earth. 

The Divine Tower toppled, and I with it. The floor gave out beneath me and I crumbled into the ruin, watching in slow motion as the pendant I wore around my neck, the one that held the power of my ancestors, hit the stone and shattered into a thousand pieces—then we crashed into the earth. 

Dust rose from the rubble where we landed, the quiet of a thousand dead. I tried to stand, to survey the ruins of the Divine City that lay all around me. I tried not to think about the pendant and the magic that was lost. Then I heard their voices: The sounds of the demons we left behind—the seething that screeches silently through their teeth.

It is said the demons once chased us into the sky—that they consumed the cities, then the continents, then the world until all that remained were the mages. It is said our ancestors gathered in the Divine City—that one from every order lifted their wand to the tower and cast a spell, 16 orders moving their lips as one. 

It is said our ancestors moved the very crust of the earth, that we saved ourselves from the demons by ripping the Divine City from the rest of the world and raising ourselves into the sky. It was said that our spells were designed to fail. That the Divine City would one day fall. That we would return to the earth we left behind. That we would save what we could not save before.

When my eyes opened, I was drenched in sweat, my heart racing. I took to the window of the Divine Tower, searching for some proof of my dream, but we were still suspended in the sky, still lost in the fog. My hands searched for the pendant around my neck and found it intact, the magic of the Mage Queen still secured beneath my robe. 

Still, I could not shake the vision. I could not shake that memory from the future.

I put on my hard leather belt of anger, my demonhide boots, and my linen gloves. Then I called the council. It has been more than a thousand years since we invoked the Ministry of Mages and called for an assembly of our city’s 16 orders. Will they even remember their duties? Will they remember the roles passed down to them by their fathers? Will they don the robes of their order and the rings of their ministries? Will they remember the spells they once cast?

Will you, dear citizens of the Divine City, believe that after so many years of peace and prosperity, the spells that have bound us to the sky have faltered? That the legends we heard as children are true?

I pray you do.