Sorcerer's Shadow
The crowd was still. Arwaah had fallen. His once-rising storm of lies lay shattered at the feet of truth, exposed by the very hero he sought to bury. Zawish didn't wait for the cheers. He didn't want applause. Not this time.
He faded into the cold shadows of New Kaladesh, his presence more myth than man once again.
High above, the sky flickered with silent lightning. But it wasn't a storm. It was something far worse.
The ruins of Elaria stood deep in the jungle, untouched for centuries—mostly because no one who ventured there ever returned. Vines thicker than arms strangled the stones, and wind whispered curses through shattered archways.
A circle of runes glowed red under the fading light.
And in the center of that ancient scar, a man emerged—hooded, cloaked in raven-feathered robes, his staff dragging symbols into the dirt as he walked.
Agnor Valcure opened his eyes. Gray, clouded with ink. A man twisted not by ambition, but by obsession.
He ran his hand over the nearest stone, whispering a word no human had spoken for thousands of years. The stone answered by bleeding smoke.
"Steel has ruled too long," Agnor murmured. "Time to remind this world of the power it forgot."
Midnight.
Zawish crouched on the roof of the Roswell Bank, watching the glowing roads below. Everything felt…off. The city was too quiet. The lights too steady. The air too thick.
A scream sliced the night like a blade.
He didn't wait.
He moved.
By the time he landed in the alley, six black birds had already descended—monstrous creatures the size of men, wings sharp as cleavers, eyes red and hollow. Civilians screamed as one crow tore a security camera clean off a wall and hurled it like a discus through a parked car.
Zawish stepped into the fray like a ghost.
"Alright, feathery freaks," he muttered. "You've ruined your last midnight snack."
One dove toward him. Zawish spun, caught it by the throat mid-air, and crushed it into a puff of black smoke.
Another slashed at him. He ducked, drove his elbow backward, and cracked its beak with a crunch loud enough to silence the street.
"Okay," he said, "this is starting to get weird even by my standards."
The flock circled overhead again, faster now, their wings forming a vortex. The citizens screamed and scattered, but Zawish stood tall, the glove on his right hand flickering with raw Dar Metal energy.
With a growl, he slammed it into the ground.
A blinding shockwave burst outward—glass shattered, birds exploded into dust, and the whole street fell into silence.
Zawish wiped blood from his mouth. "Feathered nightmares: zero. Zawish: still awesome."
He turned—
—and stopped.
A slow, sarcastic clap echoed through the now-empty street.
Zawish's eyes narrowed.
On top of a streetlight stood a man—balanced as easily as if it were a throne. Robes billowed around him. A crooked staff in his left hand. And a face like it had forgotten how to smile… until now.
"You fight well," the man said smoothly, leaping down without making a sound. "Better than most I've tested."
"Cool. So," Zawish said, brushing glass off his hoodie. "Creepy cult vibes. Shadow birds. Big staff. You must be the new magician in town. What do I call you? Wand-boy?"
The man smiled with thin lips. "Agnor Valcure. Last of the True Mancers."
"Zawish. Local mood stabilizer."
"I know what you are," Agnor said. "A slave to power you don't understand. A puppet parading as a protector."
"Strong talk for a guy with eyeliner and pet pigeons," Zawish snapped.
Agnor's hand twitched.
And the city disappeared.
Zawish blinked—and now stood in a twisted forest of mirrors, each one reflecting twisted versions of himself: some burnt, some broken, some grinning with blood-soaked teeth.
"What is this?" he growled.
"A piece of your mind," Agnor's voice whispered from nowhere. "Or perhaps… a curse."
One mirror shattered. A creature stepped out—Zawish's face, but eyes black as pitch and arms longer than humanly possible. It screamed and lunged.
Zawish met it with a spinning knee that sent it crashing into another mirror, shattering both.
Agnor laughed.
Another clone. Another shadow. Each one worse than the last.
Zawish's fists moved like thunder, striking hard, clean, furious. Each hit another rejection of fear. Of illusion.
Then, silence.
The forest faded. The real city returned.
Zawish stood in the same alley, heart pounding. Agnor stood twenty feet away, grinning.
"You're more fun than I thought," the magician said.
"Wanna do it again?" Zawish flexed. "This time I break your real face."
But Agnor had already vanished—leaving only the echo of a laugh and a whisper of cold air.
Beneath the city, far below the sewers and subway lines, lay an ancient vault. In the center of that vault, a massive black crystal pulsed like a heartbeat.
Agnor stood before it, chanting low and dark, fingers weaving spells over its surface.
"The Hex Core will awaken," he whispered. "And the guardian will kneel."
The crystal responded with a low hum. Its surface shimmered—and within it, a glowing image of Zawish appeared. A flickering projection of the one man in the way.
"Let them love him," Agnor said. "Let them praise their champion. In three nights… I will drown their hope in shadows."
Zawish stood on a rooftop, staring into the clouds. The bone crow's feathers still rested in his hand—cold and stiff.
"Magic now?" he muttered.
Behind him, the wind answered with silence.
His city was changing.
And war was coming.