SYNDRA
A Sovereign in Ionia

The monastery that had claimed Syndra as a prisoner for over a decade was untriumphant. The stone was a smouldering ruin, crumbled rock spread across a clearing that its unmaking had created. Inside the great chunks of obsidian, she could make still make out the pale blue inscriptions, which she knew would glow until someone came along to disenchant them. It was old magic, nullifying magic, dampening the sorceries of any trapped within its walls. The old monk's nullifying orbs would not have been sufficient to restrain her, and so – she gathered – he had enlisted the Elders to create a fortress of suppression.

She should have sensed it the moment they brought her, but instead had been so foolish, overwhelmed with delight at finally being recognised and taught. Syndra was not a young girl anymore; she no longer yearned for others tell her of her greatness. Her life was her own warrant.

"Where will we go, my lady?" asked Udo. His voice was still trembling.

Syndra knew she had frightened him. It had been an destructive act, doubling as a demonstration of force. "There is no shortage of temples in Ionia. We will find one that does not steal from us."

Syndra turned to her acolytes, a small group of six. The monk had failed to teach her even the basic intricacies of her magic, but they came to her naturally. She learned far more quickly than the others, who fumbled with repeated incants and measured elixirs. They did not question her position as their leader.

"The envoy will come to us soon enough, and we'll hear what the…" Her tongue moved across her upper teeth. "Enlightened one… has to say."

"They won't bow to you, my lady," Imari said. She was the youngest of the litter, and the one who held Syndra's favour. "They have too much to lose."

The dissonance in Syndra's voice flared. "They shall lose it anyway."

Blue smoke billowed from the ruin.

—

The temple Syndra selected as her palatial seat was one rich in magic.

For near a week Syndra scoured the skies while her acolytes travelled beneath her, from village to village, seeking shelter. Since her power had reawakened, Syndra seldom felt a need for sleep, and devoted her evenings instead to reaching out with her magic, pushing its limits. On the night before she discovered the temple, while reaching out with her magic experienced something new, a sensation like a craving, calling her to the western regions of Ionia. Located near a river that was the site of some ancient battle, the monastery was a marvel to behold.

Once it had been a thin mountain, stretching high but not wide. Two great trunks, taller than giants, stood as enormous columns, blanketed by red and green leaves. Syndra had formed three dark spheres and directed them inside, expanding them, revealing classic pillars of stone which supported the structure inside. Above the entrance, where the two trunks converged, was a makeshift sigil like a crescent moon. Syndra reached out with an arcane sixth sense, and found herself awash in a river of magic. Spheres began to manifest around her, a radiant gold replacing the dark purple. Syndra's connection to the world of magic at times felt unrestrained, like she might be a being of radiant magic herself. She flew atop another great tree and waited.

The acolytes, weak as they were, must have been able to feel it too. When they arrived, Syndra observed them from a distance, curious. In time, each of their reached out with their arms and their diluted magic, no doubt experiencing the same freedom she had. She descended to the adjoining bridge where the six awaited her.

Their eyes went wide at the sight of her. Three dark spheres orbited her, spinning fast, producing not a sound. A charged, dark energy was her silhouette, identifiable even from a distance.

"My lady," Imari said, and kneeled. Each of the others kneeled in turn.

A pity I can't have Imari follow me around Ionia, kneeling, persuading others to do the same, Syndra thought.

"You can feel it, then," Syndra said. "The power this place has."

"These are blessed sigils," Udo said, permitting a brief glance at the sovereign. "This is one of the great monasteries. A place of—"

"—balance," interrupted Syndra, disdainfully. She flicked her wrist to indicate the acolytes could stand and walked slowly towards the monastery. Even so far ahead of them, it loomed. Syndra gritted her teeth. She could not deny the magic of the place, but the balance it represented—the balance that compelled jealous thieves to suppress and wound her—was a desecration.

"Balance," Syndra repeated, "is a blight."

Syndra lifted her hands into the air, spread her fingers wide, and conjured four additional spheres. She sent them hurtling towards the great trunks, and upon collision they burst into a violet flame. She summoned another dark sphere, and another, and then began to fly, controlling with precision every stroke. The acolytes may have cried out behind her, but she neither heard nor paid them any heed. The structure began to rumble.

Just as the great monastery seemed ready to collapse, flat purple discs formed into replacement pillars, unevenly holding it together. Inside the mountain a heavy rumbling sounded, like a cathartic moan.

"We do not commune with the trees," Syndra said mockingly. The reverberation of Syndra's voice filled the air, colliding with the mountain, unable to be ignored. Her speech seemed foreshadowed by a deep, oscillating dissonance. "We do not parley with the mountains. If the trees do not heel, they will be ripped from the earth."

Rings of eminent purple appeared like arcane bracelets around her wrists. She twisted them, moving the trunks that had fallen, throwing them like playthings from the bridge and down onto the flowery chasm below. The sky seemed darker.

"If the mountains do not part for us, then they will be split asunder."

A band of ten or so men and women dressed in silver emerged from the monastery, bearing curved blades.

"Stop!" the man at their head said.

Syndra looked back briefly at her acolytes, and then descended to hover just above the ground, about ten feet from the warriors. "Your temple is an affront," she said.

"This is not our temple," the man said. "We only occupy it. Who do you serve?"

"Serve?" Syndra asked.

The man blinked, clearly aware he had insulted her. "Who are you?" he rephrased, with hesitation.

"My name is Syndra, Sovereign of Ionia."

"Ionia has no sovereign," the man said, looking back at her reshaping of the temple.

Syndra had kept her fortress in flight for months, sometimes while she was asleep. Her magic could sustain itself, should she allow it. Only distantly was she aware of the thick cones of her magic supporting the structure.

"Ionia had no sovereign, but its leaders are weak. The Elders are outdated and out of touch. What they call balance and temperance is nothing but suppression." Syndra paused, undecided on what she was willing to share with these strangers. No, she saw no need to mention her prison. Not yet. "Who are you?"

The man turned to look at a woman standing just behind him. Their hair—both a light blond—and a similarly square jaw marked them as close kin, perhaps siblings. They spoke, briefly, in hushed tones that Syndra could not make out. Had it gone on any longer, she might have become irate, as she could already feel a subtle irritation at the group for its lack of deference.

"My name is Kyros, and this is my sister, Agatha."

"You asked me who I serve. Only a servant would ask such a question."

The man smiled. "We serve the holy light of the moon. We are the last of the Lunari."

—

Syndra selected a spacious room with a comfortable bed that would serve as her quarters. The room was largely undecorated and unfurnished, but for the bookshelves that lined the walls. She picked out a few and flicked lazily through the pages, unable to find anything not in unreadable ancient Ionian. A word here or there she recognised.

Sai: warning.

Kuzoko: outsider.

But the texts themselves were impossible to parse. Outside her window, she had a vast view of the river she had seen before. Great swords so large more than half the blade was still visible, the hilts distinctive, unmissable shapes in the twilight. Before following the Lunari Order inside, she had conjured a dark sphere larger than any she had made before and placed it far above the monastery. The envoy would know where to find her.

A knock at the door.

"Enter."

Imari entered sheepishly, the young girl already bowed over, unable to look at Syndra directly.

"Ah, good," Syndra said. "You've come. What do you know of this place, Imari?"

"The monastery?" she asked. "It is a place of… sanctified reflection, I think. It is quite new, I think, but I doubt the Lunari would be able to weave such a place. It would take months, a year even, to create a place like this."

"And why is that?" Syndra asked. "With a thought I could unmake and make this place again."

"Yes, my lady—"

"Your Eminence," Syndra interjected.

"I am sorry?"

"I was born to peasants, Imari. In a village with scarce a hundred people." Syndra flipped over one of the books on her desk, examining the back. "My style shall be Your Eminence. Advise the others on this."

"The Lunari, too?"

Syndra paused. "What do you know of them?"

"They are ancient, my—Your Eminence. They hail from the greatest of the mounts, Targon, and stand against the Solari. Sun worshippers. The two have been killing one another for centuries. But the Lunari are a small force. They number very few, but they are warriors. And descended of warriors."

"How many of them? Here?"

"A few dozen, at most. Outside I cannot say. It has been a long time since I was last home. Things may be different now. I hear rumours…"

"One cannot depend on rumours, Imari."

The girl resolved. "I'm sorry, Your Eminence."

Syndra regarded Imari coolly. "Summon Kyros. I will receive him here." The spheres around her, gone since she entered the room, reappeared.

It was Agatha who entered Syndra's quarters, not Kyros. She came in behind Imari in no apparent rush. The woman had perhaps two decades on Syndra. The curved blade she carried earlier was now slung over her back.

"I am sorry, Your Eminence. He would not come. He said…"

"It's alright. Leave us, Imari."

"You summoned my brother," she said. "But the high priest of the Lunari, Blessed of the Moon, is not so easily conjured."

"You allude to these," Syndra asked, and pushed one of the spheres towards her. "Curious, aren't they? You can touch it. They are quite cool, when I will them to be. A simple, but potent manifestation of my magic. As a girl they were the most I could muster. I'll admit I've grown fond of them."

"Your powers have grown, then."

The woman held a hand close to the sphere. Syndra knew the sensation she was experiencing well; it began as a tingling, but the sphere's pull on the outside world became larger the closer she moved her hand. Syndra had cautiously waived the draw from the sphere high above the monastery. "What is the source of them? Some trinket?"

"I have no need for crude, ensorcelled relics," Syndra said, the thrumming dissonance flaring. "This gift is mine by birthright."

To which Agatha nodded, almost smug.

Syndra felt a need to crush that feeling. "My acolyte tells me your numbers are small. That you have been hunted to extinction."

Agatha walked further into the room, settled into a rather uncomfortable-looking chair by the window. "She is well-informed."

"You abandoned your home," Syndra stated bluntly.

"Did you?"

A pang of resentment in Syndra's chest. "I did not leave, no." She paused. "I was dragged away at a young age."

"You frightened them," Agatha said, to which Syndra nodded. "People fear what they cannot understand. The Solari fear a great many things. Us, chiefly."

"Why would they fear you? There can't be more than three dozen of you. What are there numbers? Hundreds?"

"Perhaps. Sun worship is common on the mountain, but the Solari are warrior-priests. They exist to hunt us. Now that we are gone, not one of them has been sighted around their temples for months. Vanished soon after our departure, by all accounts."

"Curious," the sovereign said.

"What do you want from us, Syndra? To share this place with us?"

Syndra turned away from Agatha to examine the books once more. A long, pregnant silence passed between the two women. "Your presence here is timely. I require numbers, not input, not collaborators, but bodies are valuable still."

"We have seen what you can do," Agatha said, readjusting her chair to face Syndra. "And all without the aid of some relic as I suspected, well, we aren't quite sure what to make of that, if you are even to believed. Only a handful of players in this game possess the capacity to wreak such havoc upon the world. What good are bodies to you when you can obliterate masses of them with a thought?"

You legitimise me, Syndra thought. To become a force in political contention with the Elders, Syndra had to win hearts and minds, not simply through fear.

"The First Lands are mine by right. But to claim the land, the people must be persuaded, and not by force if that is possible."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then by the force of my will, I will take the four corners and they will learn to value me. I can lead this land to prosperity. But the values here are misguided, and wrong. They cannot stand."

Agatha rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. "We have many things in common, Your Eminence. Both of us struggling against what we know to be harmful. But there is too much weighing upon us to assist you. Not without something in return."

Syndra narrowed her eyes to thin slants of purple. "You presume too much."

Agatha quickly rose to her feet, hands outstretched as if to impress that she was unarmed. "I do not. We have enemies, Syndra. And we can stand beside you, support you even. Kyros and I would make convincing Ionian citizens."

"You would not be expected to speak."

"All the better. All rulers must compromise and negotiate."

Syndra's jaw felt suddenly tight. "What would you ask of me?"

"An escort to Targon. The Solari have gone silent and we must know the truth of it."

"And if they are not silent, and you are misinformed?"

Agatha and Syndra stared hard at each other for what felt like a very long time.

"I think you know what we would want from you. In that case."

"I am not another weapon to sling on your back, Agatha."

"Oh," she said, "but you are, Syndra. The air around you is alive with electricity, and power. The moon has united us for a purpose. First, Ionia. Then, Targon. We will be excellent ambassadors for you. Courteous, patient, kind. And should this envoy bring guards to arrest you, we will deal with them. You need not bloody your hands, Your Eminence. Not any more than you already have."

Syndra's entire body tightened. "What are you talking about? What blood do you speak of?"

"News of a sovereign in Ionia has spread quickly. Your acolytes have been passing on your word, as it were. The ruined fortress, the dead monk. The Elders know what you did. You cannot trust those acolytes, Syndra. Jealous fools raised in your shadow. Word has travelled not just of a sovereign, but a dark sovereign, terrible in power and radiant in beauty. They're coming, and they're coming soon. Will the Lunari stand by your side?"

Syndra was close to shaking, seething with rage. She wanted to scatter each of them against the walls of her chamber for being so stupid, and she wanted to do it now.

"So be it."

Agatha nodded, started towards the door. "I'll speak with Kyros, Your Eminence."

"And Agatha," Syndra said, as the woman was about to leave. "Send in Imari."