In the hallowed Halls of Anorra, everyone must follow the Clear Doctrine. The holy words of guidance that the Queen of Wails herself had put forth for her followers. These words were sculpted out of Ghise, an extremely valuable form of eternal ice. The massive, polished, twenty foot tall tablet stood proud at the entrance of the black ice structure dominating the Northern glacier of the world.

"Every visitor must be asked, politely if they are esteemed guests, and ordered if they are not, to read the words of the queen before they are allowed to enter."

Rillegh's calm yet clear voice gently echoed the empty entrance of the palace. The old Elf was using a form of self-created magic to clean and shine the Ghise tablet. As usual, he was lecturing the younger members of the servant force on the proper etiquette to be followed inside the Halls. Most of the people standing around the old Elf and nodding already knew his entire speech and some were even able to recite it in reverse. But none would dare skip the daily speech provided by old Rillegh.

Despite his overly fussy attitude when it comes to the Doctrine and staff manners, he was considered as the most knowledgeable of the servant force in matters pertaining to the queen, everyday magic and conduct.

A few ancient mages and wizards among the Halls' staff knew him by an old title, the Western Whirlwind of the Black Feather. Rillegh would laugh gently if someone mentioned it to him these days. He had completely surrendered himself to the service of the queen once he had witnessed her power in person.

If one could observe the movements of the members of the staff force around the massive structure throughout a day, they could see the orderly manner each and every member moved. Their movement patterns seem predefined, their tasks seemed preordained and the every single person seemed to know where to move next.

A young boy of fifteen was sweating profusely as he lay on his small, feather bed. He was currently inside his allocated servant room. He could not believe his rotten luck, and the unexpectedly strange path his life had taken in the last year. His seemingly great stroke of luck for having passed the Flight of Crows exam and getting selected as a trainee Crow assigned to Terand ended abruptly with the complete and utter destruction of the training castle, Terand.

The vicious and explosive death of one of the most feared wizards of the continent, Blood Crow, happened just outside his room. And since a strange fire had started in his room, he was suspected of colluding with the blood mage and was interrogated for weeks. His former mentor vouched for his innocence, and his barely average abilities in magic craft, leading to him being let outside with only five fire lashes.

The boy wanted to resign and move back to his family, and take up hawking like they did. Instead, he was assigned to the Lost Crows Legion, a legion that he had never heard of. It took him six months of gruelling journey from the Terand in the County of Kull, all the way across the Sea of Saffron and the Northern Pearls ocean. He had lost count of how many weeks he had spent being sea sick on the ships. The guards kept handing him over to other guards along the way. Their coats of arms kept changing colours every other week that he lost track after the fourth set.

He now knew where he had reached. The Halls of Anorra.

The crazy myth about the Queen of Wails was true. The Queen of Wails was alive! She lives! She walks these halls! And I am here to serve that bitch!

His body shook. And sweat was drenching his back. He had heard stories of how the evil queen razed the entire Western Empire to dust. The Empire was expanding its influence everywhere. They had massive battalions of Humans, Elves and Iguli. The lizardfolk were the best craftsmen in the world. But, all of them, every single one of the soldiers who stood against her, were wiped out in a single attack. The millions of ice sculptures that remained standing after she had waved her arm, had melted by the following noon leaving the entire Empire only a remnant of memories.

Travis shook again. He had heard stories, and myths about the Queen of Wails. And now seeing her in person was causing his entire body to freeze up in fear. He wanted to talk to old Rillegh alone. He had heard that Rillegh was once a Crow. So, maybe he would know a way out of here. Just anywhere else was fine. Travis had wanted a simple life, he wanted to work in research, with books, and maybe in a library somewhere warm. And being at the epicenter of the Northern Ice Storm was not his idea of calm.

Today was a special day.

Rillegh was inspecting the staff force working diligently around the black ice outer palace, the ice gardens and the Halls. Everyone had proper tasks assigned to them. The old Elf was walking in a proud, and noble manner with a young boy holding a small notebook following him.

"Are the hedges trimmed yet?"
"Yes, sir Mister Rillegh. I checked it last night and again this morning."
"And the gates polished?"
"Yes, sir Mister Rillegh. I checked the shine on them an hour ago."
"Good. Everything seems to be in order. Travis, go stand with the welcoming team. The Queen must be arriving very soon."
"Yes, sir."

Travis bowed once and quickly walked over to the entrance of the palace where three dozen servants and staff members were standing evenly on both sides of the massive black ice gate ready to welcome their queen. He joined the one side with an odd member count.

Few minutes in, a loud 'Woo... woo...' noise could be heard and everyone looked up the sky. They could see a beautiful and regal chariot being pulled by Griffins was slowly landing in front of the castle. The doors with the blue crossed wings crest opened and Travis saw a long shapely leg step outside. Wearing a white and cyan diamond studded dress that seemed to be flowing like the surface of clear water, a woman stepped out.

Her face could not be described in words. She was fair, if it was the fairest description of the word. She had red, luscious lips the color of blood. Her long flowing, silken hair was white, as if the famed White Silk of the East had come to life. And her tall and curvy figure was attractive, if attraction also meant complete surrender.

The woman looked regal and royal. But she could not be compared to the Counts and High nobles of the Elven lineage that Travis had seen visiting the Terand. No, she was regal as if she deserved to lord over every known and unknown race of mortals. With her first step, all the servants bowed in unison. Travis stood there stunned and too shocked to move for a second. The next second, he felt an invisible power force his upper body to bend. The boy came to his senses and immediately bowed as he was supposed to.

The queen walked facing forward and gently greeted the staff with a smile and a wave as she passed them. Travis felt like he was in a lot of trouble and his intuition soon became real. As soon as the queen had entered the castle and the inner doors had closed, he felt his body being lifted up by a strong magical force as he was turned around to face an angry old Elf. A vein was popping in his forehead as Rillegh spat out, "What... in her name, was that?"

Travis stuttered his response, "I-I... did not know sir! My body refused to move! I was frozen in place, sir!"

The angry Elf raised his hand as if he was going to slap the boy. But with a flick of his wrist, he dropped him to the ground. There were a lot of eyes watching. He quickly turned around and motioned the other servants and staff.

"Back to work! All of you! Break is over!"

Travis stood up massaging his now bruised elbow. He looked at the old Elf in fear. But to his surprise, the Elf had a different expression in his face. "The queen is very attractive to look at the first time." He paused, looking at the confused state the boy seemed to be in. "Get up. And walk with me."

Travis brushed the dirt off his robes and followed after the old Elf who was now walking towards the western side of the castle outskirts. When Rillegh confirmed that Travis and himself were the only two people still outside in the vicinity, he resumed talking in a lower volume. "I have cast a tiny sound barrier around us."

He looked at the boy once and waited until he nodded. Then continued, "The queen is not of any known race in the world. I should have warned you earlier, she carries an aura around her that would make anyone with a weak will want to prostrate themselves under her feet. The stronger her intention, the stronger that aura gets."

The old Elf was looking ahead while talking and the boy was slowly nodding and listening.

"What you had mentioned last week. That you were shipped here for as punishment, was a lie." Travis looked shocked. He did not lie about his situation. He wanted to argue. But the old Elf raised his hand up and continued talking. "They lied to you. You were sent here because of the ancient agreement between the Queen of Wails and the Eastern Bismuth."

Travis' eyes shook wildly. He bit his lips to prevent himself from crying. He was betrayed by the people he trusted. His master, his teachers, the Count, the Crow Perch, they had all lied to him. He felt small, and insignificant. He felt angry, and wanted to scream.

The old Elf continued as if he did not even notice the changes in the boy, "She needs to feed on energy to maintain her looks. The life force and will of the servants and the staff force here is what she feeds on. Every three months, the Eastern Bismuth and the Western Empire sends her a low quality mage, a high quality soldier and two civilians as per the agreement. You know which category you fall under." His pale blue eyes looked at the fifteen year old Human boy with pity. Travis knew, a low quality mage. That's all he was.

Travis then asked a question. "If that is the case, how come you are here, sir? Aren't you from the Western continent? And you must have been a powerful Crow. You don't fall into any of the three categories."

Rillegh sighed slowly.

"The current Western Empire is but a shadow of the old one. The old Emperor was a beggar by birth. He clawed his way to the top of the food chain, becoming the most powerful commander known in the history of the continent. But, alas! Everything he had built crumbled to dust... no, to ice."

Travis nodded in agreement. He had heard the story before. The old Emperor was said to be one step closer to godhood. Travis was too inexperienced to understand what that meant or how powerful gods were. Because until last month, he did not believe gods existed. Now, he worked for one.

"One small mistake..."

Travis looked up at the old Elf.

"He made one small mistake in calculating the direction of the flow." Rillegh had a wistful look in his face. And his eyes became sharp and angry.

"S-sir? Are you alright? What was this mistake you mentioned?"

The Elf sighed again. "He touched a different river of power by accident." Travis was confused. River of power? Is he talking about the source of magic?

"Are there?... Is-Is there more than one river of power, sir?"

The Elf suddenly looked back at the boy incredulously. "What are they even teaching kids these days?" He sighed once more before continuing. "There are hundreds of thousands of rivers, boy! Each one having a strong root. Old gods, new gods, known gods, unknown gods, forgotten gods that are nothing but puddles of dead power. The rivers of magic each lead to one. You just have to be powerful enough to know where you are drawing from."

Travis felt like he was slapped across the face. His entire education on magic sources felt meaningless. Is this old Elf telling the truth? It does make more sense than everyone pulling on the same river but drawing varying amounts of magic. But, but then?

"Can we choose the river, or rather, the god that we draw from?"
"The trained wizards, no Crows and Hawks, can."

The old Elf continued walking around the garden with the boy tailing him closely. "You need to understand the pathways well, and be able to draw an overwhelming amount of power at once to be able to see your river's source. And you need a great amount of control of the drawn magic to be able to switch the source. Like I said, there are hundreds of thousands. The old Emperor was an accomplished Crow. But unfortunately, in his greed, made a slight mistake and pulled on the wrong river power."

He stopped and shivered. As if he recalled something grim. "He pulled on her river." Both Travis and Rillegh looked in unison at the black ice building. The Halls of Anorra was buzzing with activity by the sounds they could hear from the outer garden. "The old Emperor woke her from her slumber. He was supposed to pull on the river of a dead Dragon god. But instead he touched her with his greed, and she pulled back." The Elf now hugged himself as if he needed to support his body from shaking.

"She awoke that day and laid waste to the entire army the continent had ever seen." And from that day, both the East and the West agreed to send her willing sacrifices to keep her satisfied and out of their lands. The Queen of Wailing and Screams, Anorra had awoken two thousand seventy three years ago.

His voice quickly lowered to barely a whisper. Travis barely managed to hear what he said next. "The bitch needs to die tonight!" Rillegh had a cruel look in his face. Travis felt like he had stepped into something even more dangerous than serving a god. He had an ominous feeling that he only had a few hours left in this world.

That is when he heard the rest of what old Rillegh said, "Have you ever thought if a god could be torn by a whirlwind? How about one drawing on a river so ancient that even those Ancient bastards have forgotten about it?" Travis shivered like a paper caught in a tornado. He shook his head slowly looking at the old Elf's manic smile.

Maybe... maybe, he could learn how to become stronger if he learnt from the old Elf? He was already going to die. Either by getting his will sucked from his soul, or in fear of working for this ruthless god that he could not even look at. Travis decided that he was not going to die without trying anything.

"I want to learn, sir."

The old Elf suddenly looked at the visible green aura surrounding the boy as he said that. 'Interesting,' he thought to himself. 'He still has so much willpower that it is even reaching out to the rivers on its own.'

"Then, follow me. We have a god to kill." Rillegh waved his hand lightly to create a very thin tear in the air in front of him. Travis had heard about this. It was hailed as the highest form of magic a Crow could perform. "A... pocket dimension...!" he gasped.

"Nothing of the sort. Just a small room where I am going to whip you until you bleed. Oh, and also tap into a powerful river in the process." The old Elf smiled as he waved for Travis to enter.

Travis was scared. But he still parted the tear like he would a curtain of an entrance and walked into the void that was waiting to swallow him whole. Once the boy had walked in, the old Elf followed with the same noble posture he normally held. The tear quickly faded leaving nothing in the air once he passed through.

The cold winds that blew through the black ice palace of the Northern Ice Storm glacier were chipper this morning. But they will sing a different song that night.