DAGON MANSION

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: KALON HIGHFIELD

The path narrowed into stone and shadow before the city revealed itself.

Mia, Ryan, and Theolinda stopped as one. Breath caught. Silence tightened around their throats.

Before them rose The City of Sorcerers.

An immense wall of living stone curved across the horizon, its battlements crowned in turrets carved with forgotten runes. A drawbridge lay lowered across a chasm of mist — not inviting, but summoning, as though the city had already decided they belonged to it.

The last light of the sky poured molten gold across the ancient stones, and faint bells chimed beyond the wall — haunting, delicate, threaded with whispers.

Ryan's hand brushed Theolinda's.

"Stay close," he murmured.

Theolinda inhaled thick air scented with unfamiliar spices and herbs — bitter, sweet, intoxicating, wrong. A tremor raced down her spine. Wonder gleamed in her eyes; fear clenched somewhere beneath it.

They stepped forward.

Life bloomed in hushed, impossible layers.

Hooded figures glided through winding streets, the fabric of their cloaks rippling like smoke. Soldiers in lacquered, ancient armor patrolled from horseback, faces masked, weapons humming with quiet threat. Street stalls overflowed with glowing vials and dusty scrolls, books bound in sinew and starlight, relics that pulsed faintly with stored power.

Mortal merchants bartered beside beings who were not fully human.
A mother carried bread.
A creature of horn and velvet eyes drifted past her like a dream.

Magic lived here. It breathed here.

Mia whispered, "It's beautiful."

Ryan's jaw tightened.

"It is dangerous."

A sudden wind tore through the streets — a hungry wind, not born of weather but will. Banners snapped violently; crystals lining rooftops flickered like awakening eyes.

And there, rising out of deepening dusk — the Sorcerer's Palace.

Turrets pierced the sky like sharpened thorns. Crystals encrusted its defenses, glowing from within as though fed by the hearts of fallen stars. Black banners writhed in the wind, inked with symbols older than mortal speech.

A cloaked sentinel stepped from the shadows. His voice was soft, yet it carried like a blade dragged across glass.

"State your purpose."

Mia did not hesitate.

"We seek Kalon Highfield."

A pause — then the slightest bow.

"Enter."

The courtyard seethed with power. Apprentices practiced silent spells, their eyes glazed with concentration. Statues — human, beast, forgotten gods — watched with eerie hunger. Fountains spilled water lit from within, shimmering like captured souls.

Centaurs murmured to hooded scholars.
Faeries hovered like sharp, glittering warnings.
Nymphs glided past, their footsteps silent as grief.

This was not a school.