The Unravelling Engine:

Prologue

1915

The Great Hall of Volpecula Keep stank of blood and burnt stone. High Sigilist Qorash watched his last guard get ripped apart by a whip of raw, black magical energy.

The wards on the oak doors had shattered minutes ago, and now the wind from the Icelandic glacier howled through the gaping doorway. The banners of Court Pavo and Court Lepus hung behind the invaders, their pretty little peacock and hare emblems looking smug. "Allies," they’d called themselves. Sure. Allies with firebolts and backstabbing grins.

A blast of white fire took his second-in-command as her glowing amythyst shield collapsed. She didn’t even scream. A hole blasted through her in a flash bright enough to sear Qorash’s eyes. Another Celestial went down choking, wrapped in red energy like a strangled puppet.

Qorash dragged himself across the flagstones, leaving a grim trail of blood behind. His legs were almost useless, but his hands had one last job. The Engine.

It waited in the centre of the hall: a cube of clockwork and impossible geometry, humming faintly, hungry for aether. Beautiful, dangerous, and their only hope. He hauled himself onto the plinth and laid a bloody hand against it.

"Don’t you dare die before you finish that," snapped someone behind him, ice shards clanging against their shimmering shield.

"I am trying!" Qorash croaked.

Spells rang. Someone screamed. Qorash shoved the last of his aether into the machine. Locks unlatched with a series of cold, satisfying clicks. Nearly there.

Then rough hands wrenched him back. Vrindaka, smug as a cat with cream, loomed over him. "Going somewhere, old friend?"

"Yes," Qorash wheezed. "Anywhere I can’t see your ugly face."

Vrindaka sneered. "Finish them. Drain them all."

"Not now, you bloody fool. You have no idea what…" Vrindaka cut him off with a brutal kick, and then Qorash had to listen to  roars of agony, piercing cries, and then... nothing. Silence, except for Vrindaka’s whisper in his ear.

"Your turn."

The rune burned into Qorash, ripping his soul out in a torrent of shimmering light. He screamed. His last sight: the Engine’s final cylinder slotting into place, glowing faintly. And then his body burned, and crumbled.

Vrindaka brushed the ash off his boots, smirking. "Perfect. Court Volpecula never saw it coming. Their little toy is dead before it even—"

Whirr.

He froze. The Engine ticked. A bubble of iridescent energy rolled outwards from the Engine, enveloping it in a shimmering, impenetrable sphere.

The triumph and the colour drained from Vrindaka’s face.

"Oh. Fuck."

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