"Eight hundred years ago, Chroyane stood directly atop a massive magical intersection. The Spice War ended when the Rhoyne unnaturally overflowed, flooding the city and drowning the warring armies of the Rhoynar and the Valyrian Freehold in a single night. In my studies and observations of the surrounding lands, I have discovered that the concentration of ambient mana in this region used to be nearly twenty times the amount it is today. I need to know what catastrophic event occurred here that could violently drain the leylines, leaving behind nothing but drowned corpses, cursed ruins, and a localized magical vacuum. Shortly after that war, the global decline of magic accelerated, culminating in the Doom of Valyria—an event that firmly drew the curtain upon the age of magic. What remains today are merely isolated, stagnant puddles of mana, like Dragonstone, which barely allow archaic creatures like dragons to survive in a starved world. If we can resolve the underlying mystery of Garin's Curse and the end of the Spice War, it will reveal the true nature of this world's decay."
"If the world is truly drained of mana, then how are you able to perform magic so effortlessly, Father? How are any of us?" I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion.
My practical lessons had only truly begun four years ago. Since then, I had mastered many complex spells, but I had never delved into the deeper, structural mysteries of why our magic functioned when the rest of the world failed. I knew Father had meticulously engineered his own system of magical discipline, but he had mostly glossed over the world's broader mechanics, not deeming it vital for my early studies. Mayhaps now was finally the right time to learn.
"The reason for our supremacy lies in a carefully constructed combination of factors," Father explained smoothly. "Firstly, I engineered the structured Latin spellcasting system once I realised the world's natural mana was broken. The spoken incantations allow us to forcefully bind and give shape to magic, which should ordinarily be far more malleable to our raw intent. Secondly, we rely on the heavy reinforcement provided by our foci—the amulets, rings, and wands we meticulously imbue with magical conductive properties. Thirdly, the Emerald Throne. It is my finest creation. I have spent fifty years relentlessly churning and refining ambient mana within its crystals, and we recently bathed it in pure divine energy. The closer you remain to its radius, the more exponentially strengthened your magic becomes. Finally, my blood. It courses through you and your siblings allowing you to store dense reserves of internal mana. Thus, you are able to pay the extremely high cost required to perform versatile magic, while the desperate mages of this world are permanently stuck relying on crude blood rituals and human sacrifices just to mould the barest minimum of energy."
"But that still does not answer how you are able to personally generate so much internal mana," I pressed, triumphantly thinking I had found a logical chink in his grand theory.
It was then that Father smiled—that transient, secretive smile he wore when he held knowledge the rest of the world could not possibly comprehend.
"I possess over forty times the magical reserves of the ordinary mages of the world from the era when magic was thriving, Hermione. There is much you do not yet know of the world, child. But you will learn it all in due time. Let the world remain a mystery for you just a little while longer. Besides answers found rather than given are a much more potent way for you to sharpen your intellect."
In-spite my curiosity I understood his intent. He has always motivated us to discover things for ourselves instead of settling for answers from books and so called wisemen. It is the practice of this principle that has allowed me to progress so quickly in my own magical studies. It is the foundation on which any mage worth his salt is nurtured. Even if I had a tendency to recite bookish knowledge I was not unfamiliar with experimentation. Afterall spending four continuous years as father's apprentice tends to make you try your own hand with that knowledge.
"Now eat we have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow. It would not do to start it on an empty stomach." Father said while passing a bowl of the broth to me.
I took it gingerly blowing cooling breaths over it before gulping down a spoon. The dinner was a much quieter affair with Father and I both gazing at the stars. Soon the dreaming had us and we were fast asleep.
…
The bitter chill of the pre-dawn air bit at my cheeks as I stirred from my bedroll. The sun had not yet breached the eastern horizon, leaving the vast Essosi plains bathed in bruised shades of indigo and slate. Beside me, Father was already awake, methodically storing the utensils within his storage.
Heavy dew clung to the tall grass, soaking the hem of my stola and numbing my fingers as I hurriedly gathered my own supplies. We did not speak. This had become a ritual of sorts for us almost to a degree of efficiency where I could perform the tasks without instruction.
We mounted our geldings and rode westward under the fading canopy of stars. As the sky slowly bled into a pale, sickly grey, the terrain began to rise, sloping upward toward a jagged, rocky crest. The air grew perceptibly colder with every league, carrying a damp, metallic tang that coated the back of my throat like old copper.
When our horses finally breached the summit of the hill, my breath entirely left my lungs.
Below us lay the great river Rhoyne, though its legendary waters were completely swallowed by an impossible, unnatural expanse of fog. It was not the wispy, rolling morning mist one might see clinging to a meadow after a spring rain. This was a towering, impenetrable wall of dense, churning grey. It looked like a rotting sea suspended in the air, suffocating the ancient, ruined cities beneath its heavy mass. The mist twisted and folded over itself, seeming to pulse with a malevolent, creeping life of its own.