Disclaimer: I do not own, claim to own, or want to own any of Tamora Pierce's characters, plots, etc... Will not be selling this fanfic for any amount of money... and so on.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey, my name is Bjornson09, and this is my Tamora Pierce story (quite obvious). It is set one year after The Realms of the Gods, and may be extremely intriguing, extremely boring, or simply hard to follow at some points. Pay attention, sit with your back straight, and try not to fall asleep during this first chapter, please.

Enjoy, readers

Prologue:

Otherworld

Realm of the Black God

Thom gazed quietly into the crystal ball on the heavy oak table in front of him. Thom was dead. Thom had been dead for some amount of time, but had lost count eventually. He was now doing the one thing that pleased him more than any other: watching his twin sister, Alanna the Lioness of Tortall, do the things that Alanna did. He missed her desperately, missed the world of the living desperately.

"The things I could have done!" Thom cried suddenly, pounding both of his fists onto the tabletop. "I could have walked with the Gods! I could have made such magic that the world would be amazed beyond all else. I could have saved Alanna from Roger... oh, Gods."

These sudden bouts of rage were not too exclusive. They happened on a regular basis, whenever he looked upon the living with the small bit of magic he had left. Those who enter the Realm of the Black God lose their Gift forever. Thom had lost his, Roger, former Duke of Cont'e, had lost his. Ozorne had probably lost his as well, though Thom had never seen the bastard in the Realm of the Black God—yet. Ozorne had this certain ability to show up when least wanted, or expected.

Roger he saw on a daily basis. They were practically neighbors; Roger's set of rooms was right across from Thom's. Sometimes, Thom thought he heard Roger arguing with someone in there, but had never known the sorcerer to have anyone quartered with him.

And oh how seeing the bastard of a Duke enraged him. Across from his rooms was the man who had haunted his sister's life from the ages of 7 to 17, and he still spoke to Thom as if they were old friends. Thom had half a mind to kill Roger on almost every occasion he saw him, but realized from the beginning it would be futile; no one can die that is already dead.

And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

He relaxed his balled fists and looked once more into the crystal ball. The image inside had faded to reveal a murky blackness that distorted a red-clad figure within it. Thome leaned closely to investigate the vision.

He looked at it with the keen eyes of a sorcerer, but saw nothing but a distant figure, clad in red armor. Suddenly, the picture changed—the red figure was now standing on a mountain of dead soldiers. Thom gasped as he recognized some of them.

Alanna, his sister.

Raoul, Alanna's dear friend and captain of King Jonathan's the King's Own.

Gary, Jonathan's trusted advisor and Alanna's friend.

And many other faces he knew, but could not match names to the faces he saw. Slowly, it dawned on him that the figure in red armor was actually—but no, how could it be?

The figure in red was Duke Roger of Cont'e.