Portia Nyr

The Wizards' Council met for the last time on a morning thick with fog.

Seven archmages sat around a table of ancient walnut, debating the future of the Splinterlands as they had for centuries. Aggroedius Lightbringer presided. Yabanius the Architect took notes. The others argued about wards and borders and the eternal question of how much the Council should intervene in mortal affairs.

Portia Nyr sat at the far end and said nothing.

She had stopped caring about their debates years ago. While they argued, dark energy pooled in forgotten places across the Splinterlands, waiting for someone bold enough to claim it. Portia had found those places. Had tasted that power. Had seen what she could become if the Council would simply get out of her way.

They never would. Not willingly.

"The Wizards' Veil must come down," she said, cutting through the argument. "Praetoria has been sealed too long. The energy we could harvest from beyond the barrier would advance our studies by centuries."

Aggroedius frowned. "The Veil protects Praetoria from threats we cannot anticipate. Lowering it invites catastrophe."

"The Veil protects nothing but our own stagnation." Portia stood, her robes pooling around her like spilled ink. "The risk is minimal. The reward is transformative."

The debate consumed the rest of the day and the next and the next. Portia was patient. She had spent years positioning herself for this moment, cultivating allies, planting doubts about Aggroedius's leadership, gathering leverage against those who might oppose her. When the vote finally came, Aggroedius voted against. Yabanius abstained. The others followed Portia's lead.

The Veil fell. And Silus of the Rift poured through with his legions.

Portia watched the chaos unfold from the Council's tower. Cities burned. Armies scattered. The other archmages scrambled to seal the rifts, casting desperate spells and weaving complex wards.

None of them suspected. Not until it was too late.

She killed some of them herself, a knife of pure dark energy through the heart while their attention was elsewhere. The others she banished to realms so distant they might as well be dead. Aggroedius escaped. So did Yabanius.

She would deal with them later.

The Conclave Arcana rose from the Council's ashes. Portia recruited mages who shared her appetite for power and her disdain for restraint. Craniax came first, a necromancer cast out of New Beluroc for experiments even the Belurocians found distasteful. He knelt before her with practiced servility and promised absolute loyalty.

Portia smiled. She had uses for loyalty. And for necromancers.

When Silus of the Rift sent emissaries seeking alliance, Portia received them in the great hall. Dark energy in exchange for cooperation. Soldiers and slaves for the legion's campaigns. Safe passage for delegations bearing the conclave's seal.

She accepted, shook hands, smiled her cold smile.

Then she began planning Silus's destruction.

The dark energy he provided was substantial. Portia channeled it into her research, her experiments, her growing arsenal of forbidden magic. Every shipment brought her closer to the power she needed to eliminate that fool and his legions for good.

What she didn't know was that Silus was planning the same thing.

Their alliance was a knife fight conducted through handshakes. Each betrayal disguised as cooperation. Each gift a weapon waiting to be turned against its recipient. The arrangement might have continued indefinitely if Portia hadn't grown impatient.

She fed information to the resistance. Troop movements, supply routes, the names of commanders who could be bribed or blackmailed. Let the mortals bleed Silus's legions. Let them exhaust themselves crushing each other. When the dust settled, she would claim whatever remained.

The rebellion succeeded. The Chaos Empire retreated to Tovingor. The splinters began to rebuild, fractured and exhausted, their leaders consumed by their own struggles.

Perfect.

"The secret of Praetoria," she told her conclave. "Power buried beneath the continent itself. Older than the Wizards' Council. Older than the Splinterlands. The key to dominion over everything."

Craniax raised an eyebrow. "You know where it is?"

"I know it exists. I know fragments of it are scattered across Praetoria, waiting to be found." She traced a finger across the map spread before them. "We will find them. All of them. And when we do, nothing in this world or any other will stand against us."

The expeditions launched within the month.

Oridum Graybrow marched into the Great Lowlands with fire magic hot enough to melt stone. Jicarilla the Rime conjured storms that reshaped coastlines in the Wild Northeast. Mahkah Hemlig tore the Broken Lands apart with geomancy that made mountains weep. Palifala Weslinath bent time itself in the Pristine Northwest, aging forests to dust and raising them again in her search. And Craniax returned to his old work in the Shimmering Coasts, raising legions of the dead to comb every ruin and forgotten grave.

Portia coordinated from the palace, receiving reports, adjusting strategies, eliminating obstacles.

She was not the only one hunting.

Silus of the Rift's assassins carved a bloody trail across Praetoria, torturing anyone who might know her location. His agents raided her sanctum while she was away, slaughtering the staff and stealing sacks of research. The Belurocians sent their Darkguard to infiltrate the conflict, posing as allies while preparing to capture Palifala and extract her knowledge of time magic. The splinters of Praetoria rallied what forces they could spare.

Everyone wanted to stop her. Everyone wanted what she sought.

Portia stood before the mirror in her private chambers. The face that looked back was unchanged from a century ago. Blonde hair, pale skin, eyes that held nothing but calculation.

She had orchestrated the fall of the Wizards' Council. Had unleashed the Chaos Legion on Praetoria and survived the consequences. Had built the Conclave Arcana and bent some of the most powerful mages in the Splinterlands to her will.

And still they thought they could stop her.

Then the League of Verico mobilized.

Battle mages and their manifestations, elemental forces bound to mortal will, deployed in mage wagons where the fighting was fiercest. The Riftwatchers had convinced the fractured splinters to act, rallying armies that had no business working together. Now the League gave those armies teeth.

One by one, her expeditions faltered.

In the Great Lowlands, Fithe Bladestone and his Grimbardun dwarves descended from the Agniavas to meet Oridum's fire. Badly outnumbered, until the Ministry of Peace mobilized reinforcements from the Ferexian Empire and Incaendium deployed efreet forces. Oridum withdrew, leaving behind a land scorched and smoldering.

In the Wild Northeast, Gorgug the Endless and his Grimward orcs struck from the highlands against Jicarilla's storms. The marid children of Oshannus joined them, seeking vengeance for the father Portia had melted. The Gloridax Empire finally moved, deploying its Dragonsguard to reinforce the vanguard already bleeding in the floods. Jicarilla's stormwall broke.

In the Broken Lands, Kaylia Silverleaf and the fellowship fought to stop Mahkah's devastation. Lyverian forces marched east to join them. Wood owlkin descended from Sylvaras. A wild elf rallied the beasts of the forest itself. Mahkah's advance crumbled.

In the Pristine Northwest, Bella Ratajowski rallied the ulund of Ulundin against Palifala's temporal madness. The battlefield was torn between millennia of yesterdays and tomorrows. The ulund didn't stand a chance alone, but the Order of the Silver Shield marched north from Khymia, knights and hexpriests who knew how to make death stay dead. Palifala slipped away through a fold in time.

And in the Shimmering Coasts, four gnomes stood against Craniax's endless dead. They held alone until the lupi of Canicush arrived, led by a minotaur raised among wolves who commanded elementals from planes beyond mortal reach. Craniax fled. His undead collapsed into harmless piles of bones and armor.

Portia watched the markers on her map retreat. Years of preparation burning away like parchment in flame.

She had one option left.

Hidden in the Deep beneath Mount Praetorous stood an ancient obelisk. A key. A door. A pathway to Phylos, the God of Time itself.

With that power, she could turn back the clock. Undo the mage wagons and their meddling. Seize the secret before anyone knew she had moved. Rewrite history with herself at its center.

She gathered what remained of the Conclave Arcana and marched on Mount Praetorous.

The secret of Praetoria would be hers.

It was only a matter of time.