King in the North

Chapters

Prologue
Emperor Boreal
Two Queens
Desperation
King Sombra
War of the Shadow King
Epilogue

Prologue

Prologue

The bard Lillian pressed valiantly forward through the blowing snow. At least, that’s how he’d portray himself when he had the time to write his story down. In truth, he struggled to keep moving through snow so deep that it brushed against his belly. Every other step, he cursed the situation he’d put himself in, his profanities lost to the howling wind. At least he wasn’t too cold and damp, the heavy furs he’d managed to win a few days earlier keeping his limbs from growing numb. His face, however, was another matter; the heavy scarf over his muzzle was now covered with ice formed from his breath permeating it, and the wraps over his ears kept out the biting ice crystals but not their chill. Snowflakes blew into his eyes as he was forced to keep them open a crack to keep from becoming lost in the blizzard. Lilian had to keep his eyes fixed on the light ahead that glowed through the snowstorm and guided him on his way. The light came from a fire built atop the outpost to which he was headed, within the ever-raging blizzard of the Frozen North.

After Lilian’s adventures among Prince Braid’s army, he had felt the urge to travel even farther north than Stalliongrad. Surely there had to be some good stories to gather up here, he’d thought at the time, and now cursed himself for thinking it. The bard had made his way through the Crystal Mountains—inappropriately named, so far as he was concerned, for he hadn’t seen a single gemstone on his way; traveling through narrow mountain passes and stopping at every trading post and village along the way to perform and earn some food, warmth, or the infrequent coin. Sometimes he hadn’t been able to suitably impress the denizens of a hamlet, or there hadn’t been one available when the sun set, so he’d had to bed down outside. It wasn’t so bad: the bard was accustomed to sleeping wherever he could, and even the mountains were beginning to thaw as spring turned to summer. He’d been totally unprepared for the ferocity of the Frozen North after that comparatively easy journey.

Even now, with summer nearing, the Frozen North was consumed by storms worse than any winter that Lilian had ever experienced. At first, he thought that perhaps he’d stumbled upon an incursion by the White Procession and should turn back, but he’d spotted the outpost’s light and had set out doggedly into the storm anyway. If he’d had wings, he’d have been able to soar up above the clouds and see that not even a White Procession raid would have been able to conjure up such a storm. The blizzard that had given the Frozen North its name spanned the width of Equestria, so far north that the highest mountains the continent had to offer were only faintly visible in the far distance. It was a storm without end, like nothing Equestria had seen since the Long Winter.

Finally, the features of the outpost became distinct from the swirling snow around it. A hall of wood and stone constituted the main portion of the building, drifts of frigid snow climbing the windowless walls. Attached to this structure was a great stone tower, upon which burned an enormous fire to light the way. Seeing his destination clearly gave Lilian a new burst of resolve, and he trudged even harder through the snow to reach this peculiar outpost. Besides it being an odd decision simply to build anything here in this desolate and inhospitable wasteland, the outpost did not belong to the nearest realm, the Principality of Stalliongrad. This outpost, stranded in the blizzard and entirely dependent on food and firewood shipments from the villages in the Crystal Mountains, was a possession of the Dominions—now the Kingdom—of Cant’r Laht.

“Open up! Open up!” Lilian yelled as he banged a booted hoof on the heavy wooden door of the outpost.

After what seemed to him like an eternity (but was really less than a minute), the door swung open and the bard was face-to-face with a Cant’r Laht guard. He deftly slipped past and into the outpost, leaving the snowstorm behind him. The guard didn’t seem angry that Lilian had darted past him; in fact, he seemed pleased that he didn’t have to hold the door open any longer than necessary. It gave a resounding bang as he slammed it shut, locking the blizzard outside again.

Lilian quickly shook the clinging snow off himself, taking special care not to break the feather protruding from his cap as he brushed it off. He removed scarf and ear muffs, and began to remove his cloak as well, but quickly pulled it back on. It was warmer within the outpost than without; still, the shelter could hardly be called toasty, being only slightly better than chilly.

A massive fire burned in the hearth, near which was a table where the other guards sat drinking and dicing. There wasn’t much to do here in the Frozen North, so drinking and dicing were the two main pastimes the guards would have to occupy their time. Since these vices were likely what had gotten them posted here in the first place, they should be right at home. It was a poorly guarded secret in Cant’r Laht that being assigned to this post was a punishment detail, but it was effective. Few would ever want to come here or return to this place, and troublemakers could easily be made to disappear by sending them to the Frozen North. Lilian reconsidered his decision to come here, but it was too late now. He certainly wasn’t going to go back out in that storm again today.

“Who is it?” one of the guards at the table asked, not bothering to look up from the game himself, likely worried the others would cheat him.

“I don’t know. Who are you?” the guard at the door asked Lilian.

“I am Lilian, troubadour extraordinaire!” the bard said with a flourish, but the guard seemed unimpressed, even when he unwrapped the lute he’d carried here on his back.

“Right … but what are you doin’ ‘ere?” the guard asked suspiciously.

“Well, I was hoping to find a fire and some food, and maybe even a few stories,” Lilian said hopefully.

“Stories, eh?” the guard laughed, “Well, I tell you, nothin’ ‘apppens up ‘ere an’ nothin’ ever will. It’s th’ Frozen North, mate. Nothin’ ‘ere but snow. As for th’ food, you might be out o’ luck there, too. Unless you can pay.”

“Well, maybe not with gold, but I can provide songs and tales,” Lilian said worriedly, turning and projecting his voice to appeal to the entire room, “I do know one about a place much like this.”

“Songs? You’ll ‘ave t’ do better ‘an that, I’m afraid,” the guard at the door replied gruffly.

“Ah, let him sing, Otto,” a skinny guard at the table called, “We haven’t had any good entertainment in … well, ever!”

“Much obliged. I appreciate your hospitality,” Lilian said as he helped himself to a spot by the fire.

“Well, it better be a bloody fantastic song,” Otto said grumpily as he left his post at the door and joined the table.

“Now, let’s see,” Lilian said as he strung his lute while also managing to help himself to some leftover food and ale, “The Ballad of the King in the North. It’s a tale of an emperor, queens, desperation, a broken kingdom, and war. Let us speak first of the great sorcerer Boreal, a child of the North, and its savior ….”

Emperor Boreal

Chapter One: Emperor Boreal

Year 479 of the 3rd Age

In a vast domed room filled with stone columns, two stallions breathed heavily, eyes locked. A struggle was going on between them, but the battle was already decided. Both were exhausted, but the one on the floor was in far worse shape. Magical chains around his limbs and horn pulled him toward the ground, and circle of runes around his neck would keep him from uttering any more incantations. The battle of wills to seize his opponent’s mind was a last-ditch attempt. If he failed, it would all be over. He could feel the younger unicorn steadily pushing back his advance, until he had to break off the spell entirely or risk the enemy sorcerer seizing control of his mind. The chains pulled tighter, and the warlock Rap’stuk collapsed.

“Give it up, Rap’stuk. It’s over,” the younger unicorn said as he trotted toward his opponent.

Oh, how Rap’stuk hated this young upstart! He hated everything about him. He hated his shadowy gray coat that stood in contrast to the warlock’s own yellow coat. He hated the young stallion’s meticulously groomed mane of glossy black, swept back from his horn and cascading down his neck. He hated the sorcerer’s red eyes, for which he’d been ridiculed and shunned for and should have driven him to evil, to join with Rap’stuk instead of opposing him. He hated his snow-white robes that were still pristine, frivolously protected by enchantments, even after the charring battle that had raged here in the Crystal Castle’s throne room. He hated the seven-pointed star medallion that hung down on his opponent’s forehead from his horn, marking his devotion to the Church of One, a faith Rap’stuk had spurned long ago. Most of all, he hated that he’d been bested by the sorcerer Boreal.

“Don’t be so sure, colt,” Rap’stuk said disdainfully as he struggled upwards, straining against the chains.

He would not allow himself to be taken prisoner; not the great warlock Rap’stuk, conqueror and despot of the North. Nearly thirty years ago, he’d descended upon the Crystal City and slaughtered sorceresses and royalty alike. The “emperor” who’d ruled from this very throne room had stood no chance against the dark powers at Rap’stuk’s disposal. Even the Queens of Equestria, who’d ruled the southern realms for four and a half centuries, hadn’t possessed the courage to stand up to him. Instead, Boreal had bested him, as much as he hated to admit it. If he was taken prisoner, the ponies he’d oppressed for the last three decades would clamor for their revenge. For the first time in a long time, Rap’stuk felt fear. It disgusted him. He spat out blood, but most of it ended up in his tangled white beard.

“It is over,” Boreal said with finality, “I have freed the Crystal Heart from your dark grasp. Life is returning to the Crystal City and its environs. The North is free of your evil, and I have defeated you.”

“You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Rap’stuk cackled madly, “Look at you! A white knight! Well, you are still a foolish colt. Perhaps, when you’ve suffered a few more decades, you’ll figure out there’s no room for your kind in this world.”

“I beg to differ,” Boreal said, preparing to launch into a long speech, but Rap’stuk didn’t intend to let him.

“Oh, you’ll beg all right!” Rap’stuk said, “Daerin—”

He never got to finish the spell he’d been ready to cast at Boreal, as the runes around his throat suddenly struck out and decapitated him. His head rolled across the throne room floor, blood spreading quickly across the stone. Boreal released the magical chains that had been holding his opponent in place and abandoned the body where it fell. A short walk through the Crystal Castle brought him to a balcony overlooking the Crystal City. The dark clouds that had hung across the sky for three decades were beginning to dispel in all directions, proof that Rap’stuk’s hold over the realm had died with him. Boreal breathed a sigh of relief. After his fight with the warlock, he hadn’t the strength to undo any lasting enchantments placed on the city.

It wasn’t until several minutes had passed that Boreal noticed the crowd of ponies gathered in the streets below. With Rap’stuk’s defeat and the lifting of his curse over the Crystal City, the inhabitants were flooding from their homes into the streets to see if the nightmare was truly over. All looked up to the balcony to see who had emerged: the tyrant Rap’stuk or the unfamiliar unicorn some had glimpsed just before the fighting had started. Their voices were mostly lost to Boreal, due to distance and wind, but he could make out hopeful murmuring.

Boreal turned as he heard hoofsteps on the balcony behind him. The four ponies that had trotted onto the balcony stopped before cautiously advancing again. Their coats and manes were pallid, their faces sunken and hollow. Rags draped their forms, providing meagre protection against the wind and unnatural cold that had choked the Crystal City during Rap’stuk’s reign of terror. They looked terribly wretched, their appearance reflected in every subject who’d endured the warlock’s rule.

“We saw … the body,” a stallion with a tangled beard and a thin mane shuddered as he said, motioning back toward the throne room, “Is he … is he dead?”

“It is over,” Boreal said comfortingly, “The warlock Rap’stuk will terrorize you no more.”

Tears leached from the eyes of all four crystal ponies who’d joined Boreal on the balcony. To know that the nightmare was over at last was an ecstasy they’d never imagined.

“What is your name, stranger?” one of the mares asked when she’d managed to calm herself from shaking with relief.

“I am Boreal,” the sorcerer proclaimed.

“All hail Emperor Boreal!” the mare shouted, and the others joined in, “All hail Emperor Boreal! Long may he reign!”

Shocked, Boreal looked to the ponies proclaiming his name and gazing at him with adoration. The sorcerer had come here to right a wrong, to end the tyranny of the warlock Rap’stuk. He’d never expected that the grateful ponies he’d freed would declare him emperor. As the ponies on the balcony continued to chant his name and lowered themselves shakily into bows, he realized that the call was now jubilantly echoed up from those in the street.

“All hail Emperor Boreal! All hail Emperor Boreal! All hail Emperor Boreal! All hail Emperor Boreal! Long may he reign!”

***

Year 556 of the 3rd Age

The royal carriage bounced and jostled its occupants as it rolled through the mountain pass. There were no smooth roads through the Crystal Mountains, nor were there springs on the axles of the carriage (making it more of a wagon). This made it a bumpy ride, but it was still less strenuous than walking. There were many carriages in the royal procession passing through the mountains, carrying nobles of various rank; and even more ponies that pulled the carriages and supply wagons or trotted ahead, behind, and alongside as escorts. It wasn’t every day that the queens of Equestria sent an embassy to another realm—and even rarer that the two sorceresses would accompany it themselves—so the procession had to be grand and massive. All the lords and ladies of Equestria wanted to be a part of it.

“I’m surprised we haven’t made this trip before,” Queen Luna commented to her sister as the carriage bounced along, “Boreal has been emperor for seventy-seven years.”

“A long reign for a mortal ruler, to be sure, but it doesn’t hold a candle to ours, dear sister,” Celestia replied as she pulled aside a curtain to get a glimpse of the mountains drifting by and the soldiers marching alongside the carriage, “It should not surprise Boreal that we haven’t taken the time to visit a ruler with such a comparatively short reign, nor should it surprise you.” It should not surprise Boreal that we haven’t taken the time to visit a ruler with so comparatively short a reign, not should it surprise you.”

It was easy for anypony to recall how long the two alicorn sorceress-queens had ruled over Equestria, for it had marked the beginning of a new age. Five hundred and fifty-six years earlier, Celestia and Luna had defeated Discord; once the chaos magic had dispelled and the world had returned to normal, they had been proclaimed queens of Equestria. Since then, the two sisters had reigned from the Everfree Forest over the continent, or at least most of it. Their dominion stretched over the lands that had once been part of the united Equestrian nation formed after the Long Winter and preceding Discord’s reign. This realm did not include the lands beyond the Equestrian Divide in the south, or the Crystal Mountains in the north. Even during the 1st Age, when Equestria had been considered unified, the North had more often than not gone their own way, and they hadn’t been incorporated back into the Kingdom of Equestria once Celestia and Luna took the throne. Realms had risen and fallen in the North over the past five and a half centuries, so the Equestrian queens couldn’t be bothered to deal with a nation that might collapse in the next hundred years. Now, however, when Luna had proposed an embassy to the North, curious about its sorcerer-emperor whose ascension to the throne had seemed so like her and her sister’s own past, Celestia had agreed.

“Not much of an empire, is it?” Luna speculated as she examined a map of Equestria, “I suppose we shall have to see for ourselves what makes it so great.”

The Crystal Empire was small as far as empires went, but it also had some stiff competition compared to the other major empire of the day. After Discord’s fall, the Zebrikaanian Empire had spared no time in snatching up as much of the Eastern Continent as it could. The dread draconequus’ magic still lay heavily on much of the continent, especially the Chaos Lands—the name ponies had given a massive region where his power still held sway—and the rest of the pony kingdoms north of the Z’harra Desert were ill-prepared for invasion. There were still a few pony kingdoms that fought back against the empire (supported in their resistance by Equestria), but many had fallen and become incorporated into the Zebrikaanian state. The Crystal Empire had nowhere near the territory of the Zebrikaanian Empire; it was much smaller than Equestria, even. The difference was that the Kingdom of Equestria was wholly an Equestrian nation (as one would expect), and the Crystal Empire had territory on two continents.

“Boreal is only an emperor because the ‘Crystal Empire’ still holds onto some of its territory in Stygra, across the North Luna Ocean,” Celestia said, “Really, it’s no more than a few towns and beaches, but it’s enough to hold onto the title of empire.”

“The Agate Ocean,” Luna corrected her sister, “I refuse to call it the North Luna Ocean, and so does everypony else.”

Her elder sister had gotten it into her head that to maintain the alicorns’ majesty and legacy, she needed to start renaming things. However, nopony was going to stop calling the Agate and Blazing Oceans or the Shimmering Sea by the names they’d had since time immemorial and start calling them the North and South Luna Oceans or the Celestial Sea, even if Celestia told them to. She’d also been trying to get ponies to call the Three Palaces of the Two Queens the Castle of the Two Sisters instead—which, though only slightly less wordy, would never work when there really were three palaces: the Castle of Day and the Castle of Night, built alongside the Royal Court.

Celestia’s renaming project was only one of the disagreements that strained the relationship between the two queens, one that had once been so strong and harmonious. Though neither wanted to admit it, the two of them had grown apart over the centuries, even if the construction of separate castles seemed to shout it to the world. Even so, nopony had noticed the fracturing so far; if they had, they’d possessed the wisdom to remain silent about it. Sometimes Luna felt that Celestia herself had failed to notice, or perhaps she merely chose not to mention it. She had begun to suspect that Celestia was elevating herself while purposefully keeping her younger sister in her shadow. As each new year dawned, the summer solstice was celebrated in a great ceremony, but the winter solstice passed by with few noting it other than to breathe a sigh of relief that the darkest days were over. Ponies worked and reveled during Celestia’s day, but often abandoned Luna’s night. When Celestia held court during the day, she was flocked with petitioners praising her, but Luna often spent her nights in court alone. Surely her sister, who’d always been there for her since they were foals, wouldn’t snub Luna on purpose. Still, it was a possibility that troubled Luna at times.

“The North should be part of Equestria,” Celestia stated with a self-assured nod.

“You’re not planning to …” Luna said, looking out at the soldiers flanking the royal procession that suddenly took on an ominous meaning.

“Invade and conquer the Crystal Empire?” Celestia asked, “Of course not. Do I look like a Zebrikaanian padishah to you?”

Despite Celestia’s allusion to the Zebrikaanian Empire’s rapid and bloody expansion, Luna’s and Celestia’s hooves were not spotless. While they had been almost immediately proclaimed queens of Equestria after Discord’s fall, not everypony had willingly acknowledged their new sovereigns. Between wars with external powers and rebellions within, plenty of blood had been shed by the sorceress-queens during the last 556 years. Attacking a neighboring realm was not unheard of, though invading one where a fellow mage ruled would come with its own difficulties.

“Emperor Boreal is mortal—as a sorcerer he might live a couple centuries, but that’s all—and he has no heir to succeed him,” Celestia continued her thought, “It shouldn’t be too difficult to convince him to bequeath his lands and titles to us after his inevitable death.”

Celestia often spoke this way, as if she and Luna would never die. To be fair, as alicorns, it may have seemed that way sometimes. The two alicorns who’d preceded them, Yliiena the First and Nostracom the Wise, had lived many years longer than the sisters had so far, and they had not yet seen any signs that the end was near. Judging by those who had preceded them, there was a variability in how much one’s longevity was increased by becoming an alicorn. Either way, they still were likely to have many years ahead of them; they weren’t even halfway to 1158, the age Yliiena had been when she’d died, and even if they “only” lived to be as long as Nostracom, a couple centuries awaited them until they were 744. Even their lives would come to an end one day, but that was on neither’s mind right now.

At the moment, Celestia’s plan did seem wise to Luna. One of the reasons she’d proposed this embassy to the North had been to establish a good relationship with the Crystal Empire and Emperor Boreal. What relationship could be better than one that ended with a union between the two realms? The other reason she’d proposed this trip had been to lessen the tension with her sister. Even if Celestia didn’t seem to care enough to make the effort, Luna did. Away from the court in the Everfree, she hoped they’d have a chance to reconnect and renew their relationship. She could never have anticipated that this trip would set a chain of events in motion that would end with her own rebellion against her sister 44 years later.

***

After leaving behind the Crystal Mountains, a day’s journey still lay ahead of the royal procession across the fields that covered the Plains of Amon like a quilt. It was still early autumn, and a chill had already begun to pervade the air this far north, but the fields were just as fertile as those in the Equestry Valley. During the moments that Celestia and Luna stepped out of their carriage, the sorceresses could sense it in the soil beneath their hooves and in the air all around them. Magic pervaded this land, so subtle that likely only alicorns would be able to identify it as more than a passing fancy. Sorcery kept the crops and peasantry from freezing to death, but surely it couldn’t be the work of Emperor Borealis. He would have to have been an extraordinarily powerful sorcerer indeed to just maintain this spell on the path that Celestia and Luna would be traveling.

The Crystal City had been visible from a long way off as a twinkle on the horizon, but as the journey neared its conclusion, the capital of the Crystal Empire gradually came into view. The first thing visible was the Crystal Castle, a spire that rose high above the rest of the city. As they got closer, the foreign queens could see that there were actually five spires: a high central one flanked by four towers. It was difficult to see until they were inside the city, but the central pillar’s base did not touch the ground. Arches between the corner towers suspended the main structure of the castle off the ground, leaving a dome beneath the Crystal Castle that an adult dragon could comfortably pass under.

A smooth, perfectly circular wall surrounded the city, with six equally spaced gates providing entry and egress. Celestia and Luna spotted three of them before their carriage rumbled through the southern gate, the ride becoming perceptibly less bumpy as the surface beneath the carriage’s wheels transitioned from rough cobbles to smooth paving stones. The strangest thing about the city was that everything—castle, walls, paving stones, even the buildings—appeared to be made from crystal. Everything shone and sparkled as the light glanced off the innumerable smooth surfaces. Surely it had to be some kind of trick; there was no way that the Crystal City had truly been built of crystal.

Luna tied back the carriage’s curtains to get a better look at their destination, and the ponies lining the streets cheered. The queen started as she realized that the ponies too appeared crystalline. Coats and manes shone and sparkled, reflecting the light like gemstones. Both on the street and from upper-story windows, the crystal ponies cheerfully greeted the visiting monarchs. Trumpets sounded to announce their arrival and call others to the streets—trumpets blown by the natives, not by members of the royal procession. It was the most exuberant greeting that Luna had experienced in years, and this wasn’t even her own kingdom!

The procession pulled to a stop well short of the Crystal Castle, and Celestia and Luna peered out of their carriage, trying to ascertain why. They had reached a crossroads into which crystal ponies were pouring who wanted a glimpse of the alicorn queens of the south, but they weren’t obstructing the path. A guardstallion wearing blue-tinted armor was speaking to the lead elements of the royal procession and had apparently been the one to order the halt. Celestia spotted another procession (much smaller than the Equestrian one) approaching from the Crystal Castle, and she stepped out of the carriage, urging her sister to follow.

Celestia had correctly surmised that Emperor Boreal was coming to meet them here instead of at the castle, and she and Luna trotted to the front of the procession, the crystal ponies oohing and aahing all the way. Most of the adoration was due to their status as the only two living alicorns, but Celestia and Luna were also dressed to impress for their meeting with the emperor. Celestia’s gown was golden silk, with rubies stitched into it that seemed to blaze in the sunlight. Luna wore a dress of blue so dark that it appeared black until one took a closer look, with decorative rows of diamonds resembling the glimmering stars of the night sky. Both were wearing their royal crowns, a golden band for Celestia and a silver circlet for Luna (to complement their appearance and not to denote any difference in status), both topped with clusters of triple spires reminiscent of the horn and wings of an alicorn.

“Presenting Celestia, Queen of Equestria, Keeper of Day, and Guardian of the Sun; and her royal sister Luna, Queen of Equestria, Keeper of Night, and Guardian of the Moon [LS11] ” the royal crier announced as soon as the emperor’s procession was within earshot. ” the royal crier announced as soon as the emperor’s procession was within earshot.

The crowd of crystal ponies was pressed in as near as they dared, but they’d left ample space between where the emperor’s procession came to a halt and where the Equestrian queens stood. Emperor Boreal motioned for his crier to announce him but didn’t stop as he advanced toward Celestia and Luna.

“Boreal, Emperor of the Crystal Empire, Prince of Vanhuv’r Laht, Lord-Protector of Srkeskia,” Boreal’s crier introduced him.

Surrounded by so many ponies that shone like crystals, it was a bit strange to see that Emperor Boreal was just a normal pony. Of course, he wasn’t just a normal pony. No monarch was, for good or ill, and that was especially true of those who were also mages. The emperor held himself as if he could change the world at a whim, which, as both ruler and sorcerer, he could. There was an earnestness to him as he approached Celestia and Luna, though, that spoke to the fact that, like them, he had been appointed as a ruler and not inherited his crown hereditarily.

His coat, hooves, and mane were well-groomed, though the mane had become tousled a bit in his eagerness to meet the queens of the south. When it came to his dress, the emperor was still in that transitioning period between sorcerer and ruler, as Celestia and Luna had been once upon a time, adopting the styles of both. His clothing was practical: black trousers, tunic, and vest with ample pouches for storing whatever his preferred aides were for working magic. Over this, he wore an ermine-lined cloak of snow white, which was the fashion among many rulers of the day, though the color choice was unusual. Atop his head sat the imperial crown, a silver band with a monstrous sapphire that was partially obscured by his horn. . When it came to his dress, the emperor was still in that transitioning period between sorcerer and ruler, as Celestia and Luna had been once upon a time, adopting the styles of both. His clothing was practical: black trousers, tunic, and vest with ample pouches for storing whatever his preferred aides were for working magic. Over this he wore an ermine-lined cloak of snow-white, which was the fashion among many rulers of the day, though the white color was unusual. Atop his head sat the imperial crown, a silver band with a monstrous sapphire that was partially obscured by his horn.

“Welcome to the Crystal Empire!” Boreal greeted Celestia and Luna warmly, “I am so pleased that you were able to make the journey. Apologies that I didn’t wait for you to arrive at the castle, but I couldn’t wait to meet the two of you.”

“My only regret is that we didn’t come sooner,” Celestia said with a smile.

“How could we resist seeing how your empire thrives for ourselves?” Luna asked as she gazed at the sights around her, the adoring faces of the crystal ponies and the buildings shining in the light, “Your capital is beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Boreal said graciously before trotting over to Luna’s side and guiding her and Celestia toward the castle, “I cannot take credit for the latter, however, not if I interpret your meaning correctly.”

Behind the trio of sorceresses, the various lords and ladies of Equestria and its northern neighbor began their own meet-and-greet, the criers from both realms struggling to announce the nobles quickly enough. The crystal ponies had closed in behind Emperor Boreal on his way to meet the queens and now hurried out of the way to make a path for them, some in the front rows bowing to the emperor so low that their chins touched the street.

“For the shining, crystalline edifices around us, and the dazzling appearance of my subjects, I must give thanks to the Crystal Heart,” Boreal said as he led the queens along between the rows of bowing ponies, “During the First Age, the Crystal City—it went by a different name then, of course—was repeatedly raided, conquered, and ransacked, and its inhabitants were badly in need of relief. Nostracom the Wise created and bestowed upon them the Crystal Heart, a magical relic that protects the Crystal City and all its possessions from harm. It also has the side effect of making everything in the city appear crystalline, including its inhabitants. The effect is renewed every year at the Crystal Faire and only persists for those who were born here. Still, it’s a charming trick, don’t you think? You’ll see the Crystal Heart when we reach the castle. There is a feast prepared there for tonight in your honor.”

“Must we go to the feast right away?” Luna asked, unknowingly interrupting and contradicting Celestia, who’d been about to suggest they go to the feast immediately, “I would love to see more of the city first.”

“Of course. I would be more than happy to show you around the empire in the coming days, but if you want a quick tour of the Crystal City now before we eat, that should not pose a problem.”

Emperor Boreal gleefully led the queens around the Crystal City, both he and Luna seemingly unaware that Celestia had no wish to take a tour. She would much rather be at the feast, speaking to lords and ladies of the Crystal Empire and gaining an understanding of the political situation in the realm. She was determined not to let this show and sour her relationship with their host, though. Emperor Borealis seemed so cheerful and overjoyed at having the queens of Equestria as his guests that he probably wouldn’t notice, but one never knew who might be hiding behind a friendly mask. Celestia did not want to jeopardize her chances of uniting Equestria and the Crystal Empire, and despite her talk about the alicorn perception of time differing from that of normal ponies with Luna, Celestia was not a patient creature. Emperor Boreal was a sorcerer, and a powerful one at that. He could easily live another century or more, and Celestia did not want to have to wait until his death before beginning negotiations to unify again.

Luna, for her part, was having a grand time both touring the Crystal City and later at the feast. After five and a half centuries as ruler of Equestria, she was delighted to experience a new place that was utterly different from what she was accustomed to. She also found herself enjoying the company of the emperor. It was surprising to her, because she’d half expected Emperor Boreal to be the same as other mages over the years who’d tried to follow the sisters' lead and create kingdoms for themselves. More often than not, they were brutal tyrants, like the warlock Rap’stuk that Boreal had replaced. He had to have been at least a hair better than Rap’stuk for the crystal ponies to have welcomed him, but even a moderate improvement still wouldn’t have made a very decent pony. Speaking to Boreal and seeing his empire thrive reminded her of the early days when she and Celestia had begun their reigns. She was the emperor’s near-constant conversation partner during the feast—something she didn’t even realize and something Celestia couldn’t fail to recognize or grow irritated about.

***

That night, Luna looked out over the city from one of the Crystal Castle’s balconies. It was not the main balcony near the throne room from which the emperor would make pronouncements to his subjects, but neither was it the balcony attached to Celestia and Luna’s rooms. The younger of the queens had left her sister sleeping in order to explore the castle on her own, greeting the night guards on their rounds who likely never saw a living pony during their shifts other than each other.

A glow came from many of the homes throughout the city, the crystal illuminated from within by candles or fires. Luna was surprised by how many ponies were still awake, judging by the lights, but it was a pleasant surprise. It also allowed her enough light to make out the streets of the Crystal City, spider-webbing out from the castle. Six main streets stretched away from the royal home to the six gates of the city wall, with branches at several points of the paths that made a map of the city look like a snowflake so long as you left out the twisting, winding, unplanned warrens that ran between the main thoroughfares.

“Enjoying the view?” Emperor Boreal asked from behind her.

Luna had heard him approach, his hooves ringing against the stone floor that looked like it had been carved from topaz. Still, she’d expected it was a guard about his rounds, not the emperor himself. She turned to face him, the stars in her mane drifting as she did. Boreal had removed his crown, though it was still possible to see the imprints in his mane from wearing it all day.

“Yes,” Luna replied, “Although, I am a bit disappointed there aren’t any aurorae out tonight. I’ve heard of them and was hoping to see some for myself.”

“Well, with a night sky as beautiful as the one tonight, I wouldn’t dream of covering it up with aurorae. My astronomers are very excited; they say there hasn’t been a sky so vivid in two centuries.”

Luna blushed as Boreal complimented her sky. Perhaps she had gone a bit overboard tonight, but the day had inspired her to give her best. Two centuries? Has it been that long since I’ve taken passion in designing the night sky, or just so long since I’ve considered the sky outside of Equestria? Luna had to admit that she rarely considered anymore how her sky would appear to those not within her own kingdom. Were there non-Equestrians who still looked with wonder up at the star-scape? It seemed to her that her own subjects shunned her night, disappearing into their homes as soon as Celestia’s sun set. When she looked out over the Crystal City, though, she’d seen signs that many were still awake. Were they awake to witness her night?

“Wait … you wouldn’t dream of covering up the night sky?” Luna asked as something else the emperor had said occurred to her, “You control the aurorae?”

“I create them, of course,” Emperor Boreal said, surprised that Luna had not known, “They are the aurorae borealis, after all.”

“Oh, I see,” Luna said, feeling foolish.

“If you would like to see some, I could oblige you,” Boreal offered.

“And what about covering up the night sky?” Luna asked.

“Hmm,” Boreal said as he trotted up to the edge of the balcony.

Luna joined him as he concentrated on the night sky, gazing up thoughtfully. She thought that perhaps he’d misunderstood her jab as being serious and wouldn’t be conjuring up any aurorae, until she sensed the beginning of a spell. He started small, wisps of glowing light appearing in the heavens, weaving around the swaths of stars that hovered above. Boreal kept things small at first, but quickly increased the complexity of the aurorae as he became more confident. The glowing banners of light he conjured in the sky did not obscure Luna’s stars, but rather complemented them. Gazing up, it was like seeing a dance in the heavens, Boreal’s aurorae flitting around Luna’s stars. From time to time, sounds of appreciation from below drifted up with the breeze, coming from lit and unlit buildings alike.

Luna watched Boreal as he drew a dazzling display in the heavens without breaking a sweat, attentive nevertheless that his own imprint on the sky would not outshine or overshadow Luna’s own handiwork. The Crystal Empire was magnificent to Luna, as was its emperor. A handsome sorcerer and respectable ruler who also appreciated Luna’s night as she had begun to fear that only she did anymore. She had begun to feel so alone, only to find that she wasn’t alone. Was it any wonder that she fell for him?

Two Queens

Chapter Two: Two Queens

Year 557 of the 3rd Age

Celestia and Luna waved to the crowds of crystal ponies as their carriage trundled down the Crystal City’s southern street toward the castle. One year after their first visit, the queens of Equestria had returned to the Crystal Empire, though Luna had been there herself more than once in between the two embassies. The crystal ponies cheered louder when they spotted the lady of the night. The night’s stars and their emperor’s displays of lights in the sky were always more vivid and spectacular when his beloved was in the city, so there was ample reason for celebration even outside of happiness on their sovereign’s behalf.

Luna gleefully soaked up their cheers—praise that was so seldom offered by her own subjects, it seemed. Well, perhaps someday these wonderful ponies may be my subjects as well. When Luna had such thoughts, however, the reason was very different from those in her sister’s mind. Celestia could see the benefit for Equestria of her younger sister’s relationship with the emperor of the Crystal Empire, but that didn’t mean she liked it. Her plans for unifying the continent had worked, in a way, but not exactly how she’d wished.

Boreal and Luna’s romance was the talk of court both here and back in the Everfree, and it was far from just idle rumor. During the previous year’s embassy, Luna had stuck by the emperor for the whole trip. She always seemed to be at his side as the three monarchs traveled the Empire or discussed trade and diplomacy. At first, Celestia had supposed it was a simple infatuation; even if Luna was far too old for such foolish things (by several centuries at least), she’d never succumbed to them before. However, it had quickly proven to be a more serious yearning. Within the month after returning to the Three Palaces of the Two Queens, Luna had opened a portal to pay a visit to the emperor. This visit was not the last time that the queen of night had abandoned her and Celestia’s capital in order to see Boreal. Though untrue, sometimes it seemed that Luna recently spent more time in the Crystal Empire than in Equestria.

Luna was having the most stupendous time and felt like she was walking on the clouds. When she thought about Boreal, all her worries seemed far away. She no longer felt excluded and overshadowed by her elder sister, or even noticed how little the ponies of Equestria paid attention to her night. Most nights she didn’t even hold court anymore, preferring to spend her time writing letters to Boreal or visiting him in person.

The carriage holding the queens of Equestria pulled to a stop beneath the Crystal Castle, and servants helped the two mares down. Their grand return to the city had been earlier that day, with festivities held throughout the town to celebrate. They were only visiting tonight for a feast and were minimally accompanied by lords and ladies of Equestria, not their retinues and baggage trains. One change from their last embassy was the location where they would live and sleep during their visit—a side effect of Luna’s frequent visits to the city and relationship with its monarch. A manor house had been set aside for them just outside the Crystal City, and Luna had spent much time already. The archbishop of the city had made it clear that the two courting ponies, monarchs or not, both spending the night in the Crystal Castle would be “improper.” Luna didn’t care a whit what the archbishop thought, but for appearances’ sake, she made use of the manor house that now accommodated the entire Equestrian delegation apart from the soldiers, who’d pitched their tents in the surrounding fields.

Celestia and Luna ascended the castle staircases, following the course to the great hall, where a feast was once again being held to welcome them. Along the way, Luna deftly greeted the Crystal Empire’s nobility, having gotten to know them well during the last year. As they trotted into the great hall, Luna spotted Emperor Boreal at the high table, an ornate chair carved with stars and a crescent moon sitting next to his. As their eyes met, she thought she saw a twinkle of joy. Nothing could be more perfect.

***

Later that night, Luna and Boreal were together in his rooms in the Crystal Castle. The queen had returned to the manor with Celestia and taken a portal here immediately after sequestering herself. The archbishop wouldn’t approve, but she’d never know; Emperor Boreal had remarkably few servants to spread rumors. He was a simple stallion with simple tastes and simple needs. On reflection, Luna and Celestia had much been the same until their desires for opulence had increased with the centuries. Of course, it could just be that no gilding or ornamentation could compete with the beauty of the Crystal Castle, its gemstone walls seeming to pulse with a life of their own.

“I missed you,” Boreal said as he nuzzled Luna’s neck tenderly, “I love you.”

“I know,” Luna said, before she sighed, “I wish we could be together all the time.”

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t,” Boreal said, “It could be arranged.”

“I must rule Equestria, and you have the Crystal Empire to lead,” Luna said, “That is why.”

“If we have proven anything this past year—has it truly been so short a time since our meeting? It is that distance is no obstacle,” Boreal said, “As I said, it could be arranged.”

“I dare say, Emperor Boreal,” Luna said as she pulled away from him, “I have the feeling you might be trying to propose marriage to me.”

“And if I am?” Boreal asked earnestly, “In truth, all I have been waiting for is the blessing of Celestia, which I hope to obtain during this visit.”

“Celestia?”

“Yes. As your only family, I had assumed you would wish me to ask her,” Boreal said.

“I see. No, Celestia and I are equals,” Luna said, though an uncertain feeling she’d thought was long gone reappeared in her stomach as she made the statement, “There is no need to ask her.”

The implication was that there was somepony else he should ask, and Boreal took the hint. Sweeping his snow-white cloak out of the way, Boreal knelt before her.

“Luna, Queen of Equestria, Guardian of the Moon, and Lady of Night, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” Boreal proposed.

“Yes, yes, I will!” Luna replied as she embraced her new fiancé, nearly knocking him to the ground.

“Of course, given our positions, we’ll need to have a more ostentatious ceremony in order to make it official, and Archbishop Fethrus will need to announce and bless the betrothal, and I’ll have to inform the peers of the realm,” Boreal said once he’d regained his hooves, “If I start preparations immediately, we could make the announcement in the morning.”

“Let’s not wait a moment,” Luna said as she reluctantly extricated herself from her beloved, pausing before fully detaching from the embrace, and stared into his eyes, “I hate to be apart for even an instant, but there are preparations I’ll need to make as well.”

It still took several minutes for the two lovers to truly part, but eventually they managed it. Boreal watched Luna leave, opening a portal to the manor outside of the city. After the portal closed, he smoothed his mane before sitting down to write the many letters he’d need to send tonight.

Luna had no sooner arrived in her unlit chambers than she left them, tearing down the hall and nearly knocking a servant over. She would need to rouse some more servants and the Equestrian nobility to get things ready for the morning, but first she needed to share the news with her sister. She hammered on the door to Celestia’s chambers, but there was no response. It wasn’t terribly late, but Celestia was most likely asleep. Even so, Luna didn’t want to wait, and she let herself into the room after waiting for a few minutes. Candles and the hearth were still lit, but Celestia was nowhere to be found. As the night queen departed the room to search for her sister, she nearly ran into the same servant she’d had a close encounter with before.

“Where is Queen Celestia?” Luna asked the stunned mare.

“Her majesty was in the library last I knew, your majesty,” she answered shakily.

Luna took off for the manor’s library, heedless of the noise she made tearing down the corridor. Equestria’s nobility were incensed that they had to share the manor with each other in such close proximity, and the sound of hooves in the night would doubtless only give them something else to complain about. Luna didn’t care. For centuries, Celestia had been Luna’s constant companion; she deserved to hear the news first. When Luna arrived at the library, a small room with walls lined with bookcases, Celestia was seated on a cushion, several tomes laid out on the table in front of her.

“Sister, sister! I have wonderful news!” Luna exclaimed as she rushed up to her.

“Oh?” Celestia said inquiringly as she looked up, but then a worrisome shadow fell over her expression.

“Boreal and I—” Luna exclaimed before lowering her voice so that not everypony in the house would be able to hear her, “Boreal and I are engaged to be married! We’re to make the announcement in the morning.”

The troubled shadow on Celestia’s face grew darker. It was just as I feared, though I didn’t expect it to come so suddenly. She should have noticed sooner, but she’d been preoccupied with other business: plans to absorb the slave kingdoms to the south across the Equestrian Divide, expand the Equestrian kingdom into Stygra, or subjugate the Grittish Isles. Celestia had considered their relationship little more than a romantic fancy that would waver in time; that was before she’d seen the crowds of crystal ponies welcome Luna as their own, as well as that night’s feast. Things had gone too far, and she hoped it wasn’t too late to reverse them. Luna and Boreal cannot be wed; surely she can be made to see reason. Looking at the glow that seemed to surround her sister, though, Celestia had her doubts.

“No,” Celestia said.

“No?” Luna said in disbelief, “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“You and Boreal cannot marry. I forbid it,” Celestia said, which was entirely the wrong thing to say.

“You forbid it?” Luna said incredulously, “You have no right! We are equals, sister! I can marry whomever I choose, and I love Boreal!”

“Luna, consider the facts,” Celestia said as she rose from her cushion, “He is mortal, and we are not. You are certain to outlive him and would have to deal with that loss forever.”

“He’s a powerful sorcerer,” Luna objected, “He’s already lived nearly a century and is still young.”

“He is not an alicorn,” Celestia said with a sad but firm shake of her head, “You will outlive him, for many centuries at the least. Save yourself the pain and abandon this course of thought now, before you become too attached.”

“Too attached? You don’t understand anything! I love him!” Luna proclaimed, not caring how loudly she was shouting, “And he loves me! Boreal is a powerful sorcerer! He might become an alicorn himself someday, and all your worries would be for naught!”

It was possible, but not likely. Boreal had tried multiple times to become an alicorn and had failed each time. He’d shared this information with Luna, but she was too blinded by devotion to consider his multiple failures as definitive evidence that he’d never become what she was. He hadn’t died or been horribly malformed like others had when they’d tried … had he?

“The fact remains that he is not an alicorn,” Celestia said, growing irate, “Do you think this is an advantageous pairing for him? Do you think the Crystal Empire’s nobility will allow it? You cannot give him an heir.”

“You don’t know that for sure!” Luna yelled, “Yliiena and Nostracom never even tried!”

“I know!” Celestia yelled back, “Stop being so blindly naive, and look at the facts! I never imagined you’d fall for somepony like him so wholly that you’d cease thinking and ignore reality.”

“Just because you can’t have foals doesn’t mean I can’t!” Luna screamed.

Celestia recoiled as if Luna had struck her a physical blow. It was something that was left unsaid, and Luna hadn’t intended to mention the tender wound until Celestia had angered her so deeply. Boreal was Luna’s first love, but Celestia had had her own flings and romances with various levels of seriousness. In the early years of the queens’ reigns, some of the more devoted of these relationships had led to pregnancy, but that was long ago. Each one had resulted in a stillbirth, until an emotionally broken Celestia had concluded that the alicornification process made one unable to properly reproduce. She’d never allowed herself to be in the position to conceive another foal since. Luna immediately regretted mentioning it. She hadn’t meant to hurt Celestia—no, she had, but she hadn’t meant to cut so deeply.

“Sister, I-I’m sorry,” Luna said as Celestia fell back on the cushion she’d previously occupied, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No. You shouldn’t have,” Celestia said tersely as she glared up at Luna, steam rising from the corners of her eyes as her tears evaporated, “I … I had hoped to be able to convince you to abandon this course of action without poisoning your memory of Emperor Boreal, but …”

Silence stretched between the two alicorns, the two queens, the two sisters.

“But what?” Luna asked as she sat down on a cushion across from Celestia.

“I suspected a marriage proposal might come, so I began looking into marriage law of the Crystal Empire,” Celestia said, gesturing to the books between them, “Did you know that when two rulers wed, the wife forfeits all titles to her husband?”

“What?” Luna said, learning of this for the first time.

“Yes,” Celestia said, “If you marry Boreal, he will become Emperor of the Crystal Empire and King of Equestria, and you will be … nothing.”

“That can’t be true,” Luna said as she looked at the books Celestia had left out.

“As I said, I didn’t want to poison your memory of the emperor, but I fear he’s just been using you, sister.”

“Using … using me?” Luna said disbelievingly.

“He had to have known from the moment we arrived that if he seduced you, he could gain a claim on all Equestria, not just the North,” Celestia said.

“No! Never!” Luna exclaimed as she angrily stood up, but she didn’t storm out. Something kept her hooves rooted in place, her body trembling slightly.

“Consider everything, Luna,” Celestia said seriously as she too stood, “Marrying Emperor Boreal would be a terrible decision.”

Celestia left the library, leaving Luna standing alone with her head spinning. Minutes ago, she’d been besotted with Boreal, but now she didn’t know what to think. Celestia’s arguments had seemed so foolish before, but that was before Boreal’s very motives had been thrown into doubt. Even if his intentions were pure, did that make the consequences any less true? Luna sat down, mournfully pondering her position.

***

“You are dismissed. Go with all haste,” Boreal told the courtiers assembled in his chambers, sending them out to make preparations for the day’s imperial announcement and subsequent festival, organized with only a moment’s notice.

Emperor Boreal trotted over to his map table, taking a momentary break from the nonstop planning he’d undertaken for the last hours. The table was centered on Equestria, with bits of the Eastern Continent and Stygra visible at the edges. The continents rose out of the sea, with raised bumps that crossed them representing mountain ranges. The realms were painted in different colors, with the Crystal Empire colored white and the Kingdom of Equestria in yellow. Soon, one brush shall paint the continent. With his and Luna’s marriage, the two largest realms of Equestria would be united. It wouldn’t be difficult for such a land to finish off the continent’s conquests by subjugating the slave kingdoms, the Stormlands, and even the fledgling hippogriff colony on Mount Eris.

He gazed down at the tiny wooden pawns on the map representing important ponies. Three were clustered around the Crystal City, and he pushed the blue one that represented Luna closer to his gray figure and away from the white one representing Celestia. Whether Equestria would be unified or not after this wedding wasn’t why he had proposed. He truly loved the moon queen and would do anything to be with her. Anything? Yes, anything.

“Boreal?” Luna said quietly as she entered his chambers.

She hadn’t come by portal but had walked in through the doors. The emperor turned to look at the windows of his chambers. Yes, the sun had risen. She must have come by carriage now that dawn had arrived and it was no longer taboo for her to be here.

“My dearest!” Boreal exclaimed as he trotted over to her, suddenly aware of how rude he must appear, gazing at the window instead of rushing to greet her, “Did you get my letters? There is still much to be done!”

“We need to talk,” Luna said sadly, and the emperor began to come down from his elation and realized that something was bothering her.

“Yes, of course,” Boreal said and offered her a seat on the cushions laid out on the floor.

“I can’t stay long,” Luna said, sounding as if she were forcing the words out of her mouth rather than speaking them, “I … I think we may have been a bit hasty.”

“Hasty? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold hooves already. Although, in this climate …” Boreal said lightly, but his face fell when the joke had no effect on Luna, “Are you serious?”

Luna looked to be fighting herself internally, but she managed to nod glumly.

“Wh-what happened?” Boreal said worriedly, “What changed? Did I do something—”

“No!” Luna cut off that line of questioning, “I … I don’t think so, anyway. But ... is it true that in the Crystal Empire, a bride must give all her titles to her husband?”

“Well, yes. That is how it is done in the North,” Boreal said, and Luna’s eyes widened with the fear that everything Celestia had told her had been the truth, “Is that what this is about? We can work around it, I’m sure. We can change the law or be married in Equestria instead.”

“No, that’s not all it is,” Luna said, grateful for the thought that Boreal hadn’t been using her, but still pained by the conclusion she’d come to during the night, “It’s just as she said; it would be unwise for us to wed.”

“She?” Boreal asked, and he looked at the figures atop his map table, “Celestia? I thought you said her opinion didn’t matter.”

“I was wrong,” Luna said, “She made some good points. You deserve to marry a mare of your own era. I was already 469 years old when you were born.”

“I don’t care,” the emperor said passionately, “And what about you? Are you supposed to live a lonely life because no stallion has lived as long as you? I have another century or two left to live, and I would rather share that life with you than anypony else.”

“And then you’d die,” Luna said, blinking away tears, though some still escaped into her coat and glimmered like stars, “Then I would have to live on without you, on and on. I don’t think I could do it. You’re the greatest stallion I’ve ever met, but you’re not an alicorn; you can’t share my life. I love you, but I can’t marry you.”

“Luna, don’t end it like this,” Boreal begged.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Luna said haltingly, “Please … don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”

The queen and the emperor stood together in the Crystal Castle, together but feeling so alone. The engagement had never been officially announced, and so as far as the law was concerned, nopony had been wronged. But the legal rightness of the situation provided no comfort. The promise was broken, and so were their hearts. It was all the more difficult for Luna, since she’d been the one to do the breaking to both herself and Boreal.

She left via portal to the carriage waiting below the castle, ducking into it quickly so that ponies would see her leaving, but not the state she was in. She wept all the way to the manor outside the city. Boreal was devastated and collapsed as his dreams disintegrated around him. To go from intense joy to intense sorrow in so short a time was incredibly painful, and he gave into the ache wholeheartedly. Part of him didn’t want to believe it had all really happened. The rest of him frantically sought for a way to undo the tragedy. By the time his servants intruded to make sure he was all right, the emperor had fully fallen into despair and desperation.

Desperation

Chapter Three: Desperation

The embassy from Equestria couldn’t simply leave because Luna had broken off her engagement with Boreal, and neither could the processes that the emperor had set into motion be suddenly stopped. He had to send out new instructions and letters to his courtiers, subjects, vassals, and the clergy. Most of them were in the dark as to what exactly Emperor Boreal had been planning, but the few who did know the whole story spread the word of the almost-bliss that Boreal had been denied. Nopony in the Crystal Empire doubted that their sovereign hadn’t been the one to call off the wedding plans.

Meanwhile, Celestia, Luna, and their retinue continued to stay at the manor outside of the Crystal City, a constant reminder whenever the emperor strolled though the castle and gazed in that direction, though he wasn’t in the mood for much strolling these days. Many of the celebrations that had been planned for the Equestrian embassy’s visit were cancelled, reducing the time that he had to be around Luna as much as possible. Meetings still had to be held in order to discuss treaties and relations between the two largest realms in Equestria, but Celestia often took the lead in these meetings on the Equestrian side, explaining that Luna was not feeling well. This, at least, gave Boreal some hope, that perhaps she still had feelings for him—that she couldn’t stand to see him again not out of revulsion, but out of fear that seeing him would only make the broken engagement pierce her heart more deeply. He felt much the same, though they couldn’t continue avoiding each other forever.

Emperor Boreal, in grief, tortured himself with questions of what might have been and what still might be, if only something changed. What that something was, though, kept coming back to the same thing. She was an alicorn and he was not, and Celestia had convinced Luna that this difference was insurmountable. The solution seemed simple at first—become an alicorn—but Boreal was not confident that it was possible. He’d already attempted the alicornification ritual multiple times, and each time had been a failure. Besides, who was to say that that would be enough to satisfy Celestia? That was how he framed things now. Luna was still the mare he loved, but Celestia exerted an influence over her sister that meant he’d need her approval in order to marry his beloved. Boreal felt a disturbing anger toward Celestia as he blamed her for tearing him and Luna apart; in his darker moments, he wished to remove her from the picture as a means of reconciling himself to Luna. These thoughts came to nothing, of course. Luna loved her sister, maybe more than she loved Boreal, and doing anything to the sun queen would jeopardize his relationship with the moon queen even more than allowing Celestia to go on whispering poison in Luna’s ear. With potential regicide ruled out, Boreal seemed to have only one option before him if he wanted to reunite with the sovereign of the night.

He pulled down a tome from his library that he hadn’t touched in decades. His skill with sorcery had improved somewhat since the last time he’d attempted the alicornification ritual, but would it be enough for him to ascend? As he’d done before, he took the instructions laid out in detail in the tome and tailored them to his own personal flavor of magic. Magical relics and materials were fetched and placed meticulously around his laboratory in their assigned places atop the runes and magic circle he’d drawn on the crystal floor. Servants and guards were ordered to stay out of his chambers and bar the doors until the process was completed, for their own safety. Boreal was terrified of what might happen if the ritual failed … but one look at the portrait of Luna she’d sent him steadied his nerves and reminded him why he was doing this. Erring on the side of caution, he removed the portrait from the laboratory before starting the ritual.

The emperor of the Crystal Empire stepped into the center of the magic circle, the web of enchantments he’d spent the last few days weaving surrounded him. No turning back now. He began the ritual, reaching out with his magic and etching glowing runes in the air. Energy crackled through the air as the spell encircled and penetrated him. It took on a visible form, swirling around Boreal as a tempest of power, threating to tear him apart, skin, muscle, bone, and all. His hooves lifted off the floor as he rose into the air, the glowing storm centering around him. Boreal was infused with the magic that would allow him to ascend from sorcerer to alicorn, and this was where he’d always failed before. He pressed on with effort, and it seemed he might actually succeed, a tingle rising in his insides as coils of magic wrapped around his organs in preparation or their transformation. Then, suddenly, he hit a wall of resistance.

No! Not this time! I can’t fail this time! Boreal poured more magic energy into the spell, trying to force his way past the block, and he could sense the enchantment straining and resisting his efforts. With a snap strong enough to be audible, the resistance shattered, and the ritual poured forth. The cost of his actions wasn’t evident until a few seconds after he’d broken through. Everything seemed to be progressing as expected, but Boreal had lost control of small parts of the spell, pieces of the enchantment damaged by his forcing it, and it all began to unravel. Organs liquefied or shifted, as they were supposed to; concerningly, however, they didn’t reconstitute properly or didn’t move in sync and collided catastrophically with each other. Boreal vomited blood, and his eyes bulged as he experienced a pain he had never imagined was possible. The skin on his back split as his wings grew haphazardly, bones shattering and flesh stripping off them with gore-tainted feathers clinging on. Blood stained his snow-white cloak clean through as the wings trained and failed to grow and heal themselves. The tempest of magic had been dangerous before, but it had been an ordered chaos. This time it was truly feral, and winds roared around the laboratory, splintering tables and chairs and knocking over bookcases. The emperor’s horn was shattered as a storm of crystal shards flew by, some of them embedding themselves in his skull.

Boreal fell to the floor as the chaotic force of the ritual continued to decimate his laboratory. The Crystal Castle was built firmly enough to withstand it and nothing else would be damaged, but he’d failed. Tears poured from his eyes, both from the immense pain he was in and the thought that he would never be with Luna now. Now, thanks to his desperation, would never even be able to see her as a normal unicorn. He was alive only because the ritual was keeping him alive; as soon as it burned itself out, he would die, a terribly malformed wreck like so many other sorcerers and sorceresses before him who’d tried and failed to become alicorns. He’d been fortunate to survive his other failed attempts, but his luck had run out. His desperation to be with Luna had ruined him, though he knew that he would still do anything to be with her.

Books tumbled around the room in the tempest, and one fell open in front of Boreal, the pages whipping by. He recognized it from long ago, a book that he hadn’t brought to the Crystal Castle with him but had already been here before his time. The cover was pitch black, crafted from leather made from the hide of ponies. The Black Book of K’Rhûr! This was the grimoire that Rap’stuk had once owned and used to craft a means of corrupting the Crystal Heart—an ancient and cursed tome filled with dark spells and black magics. Boreal had tried to destroy the tome, but nothing seemed to affect its cursed pages. Rather than trying to dispose of it in an ocean or volcano only for it to survive somehow and another warlock to find it, he’d decided to safeguard it here, where nopony would dare use it. Nopony would dare cast the black spells within, especially not Emperor Boreal …

Or so he’d thought. Now, lying on the floor in agonizing pain, desperate to rejoin Luna at whatever cost, Boreal dared. It was the only way to survive this, the only way to become an alicorn … the only way to regain Luna’s love. The Black Book of K’Rhûr had flipped open to a page on how to summon an agent of darkness that could grant one’s desires. All it required was a magic circle drawn in blood. Boreal had plenty of that, and after memorizing the design, he dragged himself around the magic circle already drawn on the floor, altering it with his blood until it matched the configuration in the book. Nothing happened, and Boreal collapsed in defeat.

“My, my, my, you’ve certainly gotten yourself into a tight spot, haven’t you?” a voice spoke clearly, and Boreal looked up.

Standing amid the whirlwind of magic, completely unfazed by it all, stood a pony who looked incredibly like Boreal. He was nearly identical to how Boreal had looked before attempting the alicornification ritual, except for the purple mist that drifted from the outer edges of his eyes. As he smiled, Boreal was horrified to see that the Boreal-that-wasn’t had pointed canines. Boreal wasn’t really staring at himself—the voice was different, and when the other moved around, he could sometimes catch glimpses of something behind the coat and skin; rather, it was something pretending to be him.

“Who are you?” Boreal asked, amazed that he was able to speak in his present condition.

“I’m the one you called,” the stranger said nonchalantly.

“Who are you really?” Boreal demanded.

“You want to see my true form, do you?” the Boreal-that-wasn’t sighed, “Very well.”

The transformation was instantaneous as the guise was stripped away. An alicorn loomed over Boreal, taller even then Celestia or Luna, purple mist still drifting from his eyes. There were also four wings on his back instead of two. He must have looked truly majestic and awe-inspiring once, but now he was only terrifying. Severe burns covered the entirety of his body, and the few feathers that still clung to protrusions that had once been wings were blackened or broken one and all. A Sundered! A daemon! Boreal stood before one of the Holy Chargers that had once rebelled against Faust under the leadership of Ruthus and been expelled from the heavens for their treachery. That is, if this really was the stranger’s true form, and everything truly was as the Church of One taught; but for Boreal, there was no other explanation.

“You haven’t got much time left,” the Sundered said idly as the room tore itself apart, “What is it that you want? I can guess, but it’s better to hear it from your own lips so there’s no confusion.”

Could Boreal go though with this? Of course, he’d expected something terrible by going through the Black Book of K’Rhûr, but nothing could have prepared him for being in the presence of a Sundered and asked to make a request. If he didn’t make a deal with this daemon, then he would die and never see Luna again … but was that worse than the consequences of making this deal?

Anything for Luna. Anything. Anything!

“I want to be an alicorn,” Boreal said.

“Good,” the Sundered said, trotting over to Boreal’s broken body, “I will make you into an alicorn, a process you so thoroughly botched yourself. Will you accept this contract?”

“What are the terms?” Boreal panted.

“I don’t think that really matters, do you?” the Sundered whispered in his ear as he bent down; Boreal realized that he was right, or mostly so, “They don’t involve your beloved, if that eases your mind.” It did.

“I accept,” Boreal sobbed, “Save me!”

When he opened his eyes, the broken stallion lying on the floor saw that his cry for salvation seemed to have gone unheard. The Sundered was nowhere to be seen, and Boreal cursed him for his tricks and cruelty, playing with a desperate pony in his last moments before death. His words made no intelligible sounds, his speech taken from him again now that the cursed visitor was gone.

He could still scream and cry out in pain, and he did so when his body was suddenly hoisted up into the air by an invisible force. Boreal realized belatedly that the ritual magic was flowing into him again. The tempest of energy had taken on a purple tint, like the haze that had drifted from the Sundered’s eyes, and dark flames burst up around the edges of the magic circle. Boreal’s organs reformed properly, and he heaved deep breaths as newly-healthy lungs filled with air. His horn rebuilt itself, and the shattered excuses for wings on his back snapped off, flesh and bone sloughing away and falling to the floor in wide splatters of blood. New wings covered in pristine onyx feathers burst from his back, brushing against the ceiling. Gently, Boreal lowered to the floor, where he promptly stumbled and collapsed.

The ritual concluded and faded away, and as Boreal stood up, he cast a gaze around the room. Everything seemed untouched, as if nothing had gone awry during the ritual at all. There was no blood circle on the floor; it had vanished, along with Boreal’s discarded wings and the remains of his horn. He checked, and the Black Book of K’Rhûr was still hidden away behind one of his bookcases, covered in dust and spiderwebs as if it hadn’t been removed in decades. Did I hallucinate it all? Was it just part of the ritual? Nothing in the book had mentioned anything about hallucinations, but it also said that every alicorn’s experience had been different.

No looking glasses were in the laboratory, and he hurried out into his chambers to get a look at his new form. He could feel the wings and sense that vast magical potential now at his disposal, but it wouldn’t seem real until he could see it for himself. Boreal found a looking glass and examined his image in it. Indeed, he could see the wings, and he struggled to get them under control and tuck them against his body. As they moved out of the way, he could see his cloak was bloodstained; now it was completely crimson, instead of snow-white. Well, that would have to go, although he did like the look of the color on him. Had it gotten bloodstained when his wings had failed to grow in properly? Or had they grown properly after all, and there was just bloodshed that he hadn’t anticipated? It wouldn’t surprise him if growing new wings would cause some damage. It was a troubling but not definitive sign that he had made that deal with a Sundered after all.

Boreal’s horn was also changed. Instead of the grooved cone he’d had before, it was now smoothed and slightly curved, like that of the rhinoceroses found in the Zebrikaanian Empire. Gone also was the thin layer of skin and downy hair over the bony protrusion that matched its color to his coat; this horn was entirely bone. It was also red, which he was sure his bones shouldn’t be. However, this also wasn’t conclusive proof that anything untoward had happened during his ascension. There had only been one other alicorn stallion in history, and Nostracom the Wise wasn’t around to share if he’d noticed any oddities after his own transformation.

Perhaps these signs were just coincidences. There were certainly plenty of other signs that pointed to the encounter with the Sundered just being a hallucination. The important thing was that Boreal was now an alicorn. Although, if everything he’d experienced really had happened, what was the cost?

King Sombra

Chapter Four: King Sombra

Will she come? Emperor Boreal paced nervously in his chambers. He hadn’t left them since his transformation, and only a few servants sworn to secrecy had seen his new majestic form. He would have preferred nopony to know that he had achieved alicornhood before Luna, but he also couldn’t just pop into the manor outside of the Crystal City unannounced. He needed a messenger to bring her word that he wished to speak with her. Also, Boreal was in need of new clothes tailored for his alicorn body. He’d only had one tunic to accommodate his wings, and it’d been rendered unsalvageable by bloodstains during his transformation. The tainted cloak would also have to go, but he asked the imperial tailor to add some crimson cloaks to his requested list of garments.

Consequently, Boreal had disappeared from public life for several days. The last time he’d seen anypony other than a servant or the tailor had been just before he’d undertaken the alicornification ritual, and ponies in the street were beginning to speculate what had become of their emperor. Unsurprisingly, much of the blame was laid at the hooves of the visiting queens. It was practically public knowledge by now what had happened between Boreal and Luna, and how the Equestrian queen had been the one to break off the engagement before it could even begin. Things had been decidedly tense between the emperor and the Equestrian embassy for days now, but it was only in the last few days that Boreal had cancelled all meetings and events with them. Clearly, their emperor was so overcome by grief that he’d decided to seclude himself. While not entirely untrue, they would be in for a big surprise when he finally emerged from his isolation.

“Emperor Boreal,” Luna said formally as she entered his chambers and a guard shut the door behind her, “I hope that my actions have not spoiled any future relations between our two realms.”

Oh, Luna! How I want to run to you, but alas, I must wait until you are ready to receive me again. With great effort, Boreal had managed to tuck his wings beneath his cloak so that, to Luna, he appeared just the same as before. His horn, of course, posed a problem, but he’d had some alterations made to his crown that would cover it up. Luna looked anxiously around the room, shocked that there was nopony else here. His letter had invited her here in a very formal manner, and she must have assumed that it wouldn’t be just the two of them. That had been Boreal’s intent, for he’d feared she wouldn’t have come otherwise.

“Perhaps I should go,” Luna said and began back toward the door.

“Please, don’t go,” Boreal said, and Luna paused, “I do not blame you for what you’ve done. Though I couldn’t accept it at the time, you were wise to shun union with one who could only give you a small piece of their life and would consume all of yours. So, I have remedied the problem.”

Boreal’s crimson cloak fluttered as he unfurled his wings, and Luna gasped. Recently, Luna had been through much, and her emotions felt knotted up from the twisting and turning, risings and fallings of her life. She’d joyfully accepted Boreal’s proposal, only to soon reject it and mourn that decision … but now, it seemed that what could have been before could be again. If he was an alicorn, then what reason was there that they should not be wed? The voices in Luna’s head she’d created in order to keep from running back to him before screamed out that it wasn’t possible, but she silenced them.

“I … can it be?” Luna asked.

“It can,” Boreal said as he hesitantly moved toward her, still mindful of the distance their separation had caused, “I am an alicorn now, Luna, the same as you. All the barriers have been broken down! There is no reason we cannot be together!”

“Yes, yes,” Luna said, only half-believing that all this was really happening but wanting so desperately to believe it.

“Does that mean …” Boreal said, and stopped, “Does that mean you will marry me?”

“I … I want to say yes, but everything has changed so suddenly. I don’t want to be hasty. I think … in time … yes,” Luna said, dreamlike.

“Of course, take your time,” Boreal said as he embraced her and sighed contentedly as she not only didn’t back away, but also reciprocated, “We have all the time we need now.”

Warm smiles adorned the faces of the two alicorns, reunited again. In the nearby looking glass, Boreal’s reflection smiled as well, though this smile had sharp teeth and purple mist drifted from the corners of its eyes.

***

Talks resumed with the Equestrian delegation almost immediately. Celestia was unhappy that her sister and Emperor Boreal had resumed their relationship and still cautioned her sister against commitment, but that advice now mostly fell on deaf ears. The subjects of the Crystal Empire were overjoyed that their emperor and his beloved were together again, and they were possibly even more ecstatic that their sovereign was now an alicorn. In their eyes, one more difference between their empire and the Kingdom of Equestria was gone.

That wasn’t the only change with Boreal at its source that made them more like their southern neighbor, though. Talks with the southern queens led to sweeping changes in the structure of the realm to make it more like Equestria, which the emperor claimed to be in preparation for a joining of the realms. Both the changes and the reason he’d given for them did not sit well with many of the powerful nobles in the Crystal Empire. Their influence at court and power in their own lands were diminished by these measures, and they didn’t like the new titles and styles they were given to be more like the southern kingdom. Gone were doukes and jaarls, replaced by dukes and earls, and with these changes in titles also came a change in power. Boreal increasingly centralized the empire—a process that some might see as inevitable given how long he would reign, but which he tried to accomplish not in centuries or decades but in weeks and months. Still, Emperor Boreal had always been a good and fair ruler, a sorcerer endowed with great power and wisdom, so the complaints of the nobility were limited to words only … at least at first.

There was great outrage when Emperor Boreal introduced his most radical reform yet. Citing the relatively small size of the Crystal Empire when compared to the Kingdom of Equestria, he wanted to demote the realm’s status and also his own title. He wished to create a Kingdom of the North, with Boreal as its king, not its emperor. It was mostly a means of securing equal rank with Luna; he hoped that it would make an equal wedding easier if he was a king and she a queen, so there would be no suggestion that his future bride was his inferior. Whatever had motivated the emperor, this was something that the empire’s nobles could not stand for. When protest was ignored, some rose in open rebellion against the emperor to convince him to see sense. It was like the early reign of Celestia and Luna, when the lords and ladies of Equestria believed their armies were a match for alicorns. They’d learned their lesson, and soon the nobles of the Crystal Empire would, too. Their armies were destroyed, their titles were seized; the other nobles were too cowed to think about opposing the emperor, so he got his wish. The Crystal Empire would become the Kingdom of the North. Boreal would be crowned king, but not until the coronation ceremony—something that the surviving nobles ensured would remain postponed indefinitely. Even Archbishop Fethrus assisted with the plot, coming up with more and more elaborate reasons to delay.

Throughout these ominous proceedings, Luna began to worry about her beloved. While some of his reforms still embodied good governance, many seemed to ring uncomfortably of tyranny, even if they did parallel some of the developments the Kingdom of Equestria had itself undergone. He seemed to be going about things quite the wrong way, roughly forcing his people to change more and more every day. She cautioned Boreal to be patient in his reforms, but any assurances he gave her that he would slow down seemed forgotten the moment she’d left his presence. It didn’t help that many of his reforms seemed directed at trying to please her, in whatever roundabout way they might, especially his plans to dissolve the Crystal Empire and create a new kingdom. Could he still be worried that she’d never marry him and so was desperately trying to make himself and his realm more acceptable to her? When she’d asked, he’d seemed completely unaware of any underlying thread in his reforms that might buy her affections when she’d asked, but was he being truthful? Perhaps she ought to just marry him before any more damage was done (and any more rebellious nobles’ heads rolled).

Something else seemed to have changed about Boreal after his ascension to alicornhood, though. While he was still the stallion she’d fallen in love with, sometimes he seemed a different pony entirely. Without warning, his attitude would change, or he’d make contradictory claims and decisions, only for him to return to his old self a moment later. He was a paradox—a ruler who cared greatly for the well-being of his realm and his subjects, while seeming entirely unconcerned about the difficulties he was putting them through with his reforms. Boreal also appeared completely unfazed by dark rumors of cruelty that claimed to have come from the far reaches of his realm. There was some talk, unfounded or otherwise, of peasants and townsponies alike being rounded up and marched off like slaves to the mines to unearth vast quantities of ore. Luna expected Boreal to squash these rumors before they got out of control, but he seemed not to care.

She was worried that something had happened during his alicornification to change him. (Maybe it had just been her rejection of his proposal that had done it, but it was easier to live with the first supposition.) The process of becoming an alicorn was a dangerous one, and Boreal had already failed several times before succeeding. Perhaps it hadn’t gone entirely according to plan; she had some proof of that already. He’d shown her how his horn had changed, hoping she knew something about alicornification that he didn’t and could explain it. She hadn’t, and nothing in the records about Yliiena the First or Nostracom the Wise suggested they’d had anything other than normal (albeit longer than usual) unicorn horns. He’d seemed concerned when he’d asked, but by the time Luna had an answer for him, he no longer seemed concerned. Perhaps there’d been some damage to his mind, but there were no records on anything like that ever happening before either. Anypony who’d failed the alicornification ritual had either died, or been horribly mangled and usually died shortly thereafter. There were no records of somepony actually becoming an alicorn and having something wrong with them. Perhaps Boreal was fine, but Luna still worried, and her concern grew greater as the Crystal Empire continued to experience a rapid decline.

Across the Agate Ocean, the Styrgran possessions of the Crystal Empire refused to suffer any more of the emperor’s reforms. Srkeskia’s population rose in revolt, proclaiming their independence from the empire. It was independence that likely wouldn’t last long with hungry neighboring Stygran realms, but the inhabitants still preferred it to remaining under an emperor who seemed bent on changing everything about his domain. Emperor Boreal received no support from his Equestrian vassals in putting down the rebellion, all of them just as outraged at the reforms he’d been forcing upon them, and so he traveled to Srkeskia himself. Not a single Srkeskian, stallion, mare, or foal, survived the emperor’s retribution. With his newly acquired alicorn magic, Boreal wiped out all life in Srkeskia and razed all towns and villages to the ground. Thousands were slaughtered; the emperor’s only concern was that the Crystal Empire had no more overseas possessions, making the path to becoming a kingdom easier. dead, the emperor’s only concern was that the Crystal Empire had no more overseas possessions and the path to becoming a kingdom would be easier.

“Tell me it isn’t true!” Luna demanded as she burst into his chambers.

Smoke rose from the emperor’s map table, marking where he’d just burned away Srkeskia to match reality. The emperor himself was hunched over nearby with a defeated expression. His eyes were wide and unblinking and tears marred his coat, some of them sparkling a deep purple from certain angles. He didn’t look like a pony who’d recently delighted in a massacre, but that didn’t match what Luna had heard. Could she have been wrong? But, Srkeskia certainly was gone, and what could have provoked Boreal to wipe it out? There was no explanation she could think of that would justify such a massacre.

“It’s true,” Boreal said hollowly, “What have I done? How could this have happened? Is this the price I must pay?”

“You’re not talking sense,” Luna said as she trotted over beside him, “Why? Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t want to, but … I’m not in control. He is!”

“Who?” Luna asked.

“I should have told you the truth, but I didn’t believe it myself. I couldn’t believe it!” Boreal said, “I failed the alicornification ritual.”

“What are you talking about? You’re an alicorn, aren’t you?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know what I am. I was dying, and then … I saw a way out,” Boreal said as he straightened his back, revealing the book he’d been hunched over, a heavy tome bound in black leather, “I used black magic to summon a Sundered and asked him to make me an alicorn, but he’s enacted a terrible price. I’m becoming a monster. I don’t have control. I often don’t remember what I’ve done or why I’ve done it. I-I’m coming apart!”

“A … Sundered?” Luna said skeptically, though Boreal clearly wasn’t in his right mind. Perhaps he was telling the truth, or perhaps it was all madness. Either way, something had gone wrong with his alicornification.

“Believe me or not, but I beg you to do one thing for me. This is the Black Book of K’Rhûr. Take it!” Boreal commanded, holding out the book, “Destroy it if you can, as I was unable to do. If you cannot, then you must hide it and keep it from me so that I am not tempted to use any more of the dark spells that Rap’stuk once used. I can feel the draw already!”

Luna took the book from him, intending to give it a look-over to determine just what was contained within that could have shaken Boreal so much. Perhaps there was some way to reverse whatever had gone wrong with his alicornification, but the answer likely wouldn’t come from this book. Don’t worry, Boreal. I’ll find a way to fix everything. I’ll save you, my heart.

***

Luna attempted to discover what could have gone wrong with Boreal’s alicornification, but she was at a loss, the same as when she’d searched for a reason behind his erratic behavior before learning his account. She still doubted that he really had spoken to one of the daemons the Church of One warned about, but it was becoming clearer by the day that something evil had taken over Boreal’s mind. More rumors of brutality reached the empire’s capital every day, as well as word that the iron harvested by slave labor was being used to build up the realm’s military. It could have been meant to help put down the riots and rebellions that were becoming more frequent, but it was more likely that Boreal was planning an invasion, and the Kingdom of Equestria was the only likely target. Celestia rarely met with Boreal anymore, and Luna never did so in an official capacity, more concerned with scouring the Crystal City’s archives for anything that might help her cure his body and soul. mind. Rumors of brutality reached the empire’s capital more frequently, as well as word that the iron being harvested by slave labor was being used to build up the realm’s military. It could have been meant to help put down the riots and rebellions that were becoming more frequent, but it was more likely that Boreal was planning an invasion, and the Kingdom of Equestria was the only likely target. Celestia rarely met with Boreal anymore, and Luna never did so in an official capacity, more concerned with scouring the Crystal City’s archives for anything that might help her cure Boreal.

She realized that Boreal had only pushed himself to become an alicorn because of her, often causing Luna to blame herself for what had happened. She wasn’t the most frequent target of her own guilt and anger, though. If only Celestia hadn’t meddled and planted the ideas in Luna’s head that she and Boreal couldn’t be together, none of this would have happened. Life would have been so much happier, and Luna was beginning to think that even losing Boreal one day to his mortality couldn’t be worse than this. There were arguments, sometimes heated, but Luna wasn't able to let all the blame lie on her sister for long. She hadn’t forced Luna to heed her advice to break things off with Boreal.

Luna wasn’t the only one placing the blame on herself and her sister for the increasingly despotic nature of Emperor Boreal. The subjects of the Crystal Empire were suffering, and in their suffering, they looked for somepony to blame. The foreign queens made excellent targets. Boreal had ruled justly and peacefully for seventy-seven years, and less than two years had passed since Celestia and Luna arrived. Directly related or not, they were targeted by many for the change that had come over their emperor. The Equestrian embassy’s camp around the manor became increasingly fortress-like; ponies rarely left it, and never without a large contingent of guards who didn’t always return at full strength. No longer welcomed by the ponies of the empire and very seldomly consulted by Emperor Boreal, who was consumed in his plans to reshape the Crystal Empire (and sometimes all of Equestria, it seemed) in his own image, the embassy left the North.

Things continued to worsen after their departure. Fear and strength of arms were used to keep Boreal’s subjects in line. It was shortly after the Equestrian queens had left that Boreal finally had his coronation and the Crystal Empire ceased to be, except for in the hearts of those who despised their new king. It was nothing like his first coronation, when the lords and ladies of the empire had joyfully assembled, and the archbishop of the Crystal City had placed the crown on his head and anointed him. Sick of the stalling of his nobles and Archbishop Fethrus, Boreal had ordered all his vassals to come to the Crystal City on pain of death and forfeiture of titles, and had crowned himself in the Crystal Castle’s throne room with not a single cleric of the Church of One in attendance. At his coronation, he’d also taken a new name: Sombra. This earned him the moniker of Shadow King in the North by some, and he took no measures to stop such usage of the title.

Back in the Three Palaces of the Two Queens, Luna continued to search for a way to reverse Emperor Boreal’s—now King Sombra’s—destructive path. She consulted all the knowledge and wisdom of Equestria and came up empty. Nothing like this had ever happened before, as far as the records were concerned. Luna continued to search for some way to save Sombra, but she began to feel it was a hopeless task and fell into despair. Before, she’d abandoned her duties from her love of Boreal, and now she abandoned them out of the love she still had for who he’d been—and the fear of what he had become.

Celestia insisted that Luna take recesses from her search for a solution, and Luna had to agree that it as a good idea. If things went on as they had, buried in her research with no solution in sight, she was liable to go mad. She began to attend court again, alongside Celestia, though she did little but sit on her throne and stare blankly with bloodshot eyes. She was present, though, and was there to witness when the refugees arrived.

A great horde of desperate ponies had traveled down from the North together, making the long trek to beseech the queens of Equestria for aid. Many had either fled to escape the terror that was now sweeping across the Crystal Empire or been expelled from the realm on the orders of King Sombra. There was a large contingent of clergy that fell into the latter group, as King Sombra had grown tired of Archbishop Fethrus and the others challenging him and decided to banish the Church of One from his lands. It was Archbishop Fethrus, wearing makeshift vestments cobbled together from rags after the Church had had all its possessions stripped by the king, who addressed Celestia, Luna and the lords and ladies of Equestria in the Royal Court. , wearing makeshift vestments cobbled together from rags after the Church had had all its possessions stripped by the king, who addressed Celestia, Luna and the lords and ladies of Equestria in the Royal Court.

“Boreal has become a tyrant, as bad as or worse than Rap’stuk before him. Thousands are executed for minor offences, ponies are dragged off to the mines or taken for profane sacrifices, and all of the Crystal Empire groans beneath the burden that the Shadow King imposes on us,” Fethrus spoke as the crowd of battered ponies behind her shifted listlessly, “Emperor Boreal—no, King Sombra—must be stopped! Please, in the name of all that is good and righteous, and for the sake of the Crystal Empire’s subjects, I beseech you, Queens Celestia and Luna, to save us from this tyrant! If you do, we will gladly become your subjects.”

Immediately after Fethrus’s plea was spoken, the nobility of Equestria began to whisper amongst themselves. When the refugees had arrived, they’d hoped Celestia and Luna would send them off, maybe with some food to mollify them and prevent a riot, but their attitudes had changed. King Sombra wasn’t seen as an immediate threat, so they hadn’t really cared about what went on in the North. Even the nobles who’d accompanied Celestia and Luna on their most recent embassy were indifferent to their neighboring realm tearing itself apart. Now, there was the promise of new lands added to the Kingdom of Equestria, and Celestia and Luna would need somepony to administer those lands. Although many parts of the North were currently struggling, the nobles seen before just how fertile those lands could be, and they desired them for themselves. This could be a good opportunity for them to expand their own holdings. Soon, much of the court began calling for the queens to intervene. To be fair, some truly were outraged by the tale that Fethrus, and some of the other leaders of the refugees before her, had told, and they too lent their voices to the call. The Royal Court went silent as Celestia stood.

“It is clear that your people are suffering greatly, and I am glad you have brought word to us about this injustice,” Celestia said smoothly, “We must be prudent in our response. Luna, you know Sombra better than I. What course of action would you suggest to redress his crimes?”

Luna had been in a daze ever since she’d learned that an army of refugees had traveled all the way from the North to the Everfree Forest. The stories they’d brought of Sombra’s cruelty had horrified her. It’s not him doing it, she told herself, but she was beginning to see that Boreal might really be gone. There was no way to reverse what had befallen him or release him from the grip of evil, so he may as well have been dead. Sombra had replaced Boreal, and she might never truly see her beloved again. The different names made it somewhat easier to think about, but in her heart, she knew they were still the same pony. Boreal existed within Sombra somewhere, but could she unearth him? If everything she had heard was true, she feared not.

“It must be war,” Luna said as everypony in the hall strained to hear her, “I did not wish to believe it, but the evil has consumed him. There will be no peace possible with King Sombra.”

“Then it’s settled! Call up every levy and assemble the royal army! We march for the North!” Celestia announced as tears streaked down Luna’s cheeks.

War of the Shadow King

Chapter Five: War of the Shadow King

Less than two years had cycled past after Queens Celestia and Luna had first traveled to the Crystal Empire in order to seek better relations with Emperor Boreal; now, they led an army twenty thousand strong across the Crystal Mountains into the Kingdom of the North to overthrow King Sombra. It was an unprecedented army, with levies drawn from every corner of Equestria and headed by two sorceress-queens. Still, they didn’t expect to be equally matched with their foes on the Plains of Amon outside of the Crystal City. While Celestia and Luna had been gone, even without the Black Book of K’Rhûr, Sombra had discovered how to corrupt the Crystal Heart and enslave the entirety of the North. With the metal that had been mined and smelt by slaves, he’d forged weapons for an army equal to that of Equestria, filled with soldiers who would fight to the death for him—the king’s sorcery allowed them no other fate.

A dark pall hung over the North, especially deep over the Crystal City where the shadow of the Shadow King could be palpably felt. The armies faced each other across the once-verdant fields, waiting for the order to strike. The leaders of both armies were unseen, but as the day neared evening and knights shifted uncomfortably in their armor, Celestia emerged alone from the royal tent. Celestia cast her eyes skyward as she drew upon her sorcerous power, and great rends opened in the cloud cover, allowing the light of the setting sun to pierce through. King Sombra’s army cringed at the sudden brightness, and the Equestrian army cheered at the display of their monarch’s power.

“Celestia!” Sombra’s voice roared, shaking the battlefield and quieting the celebrating soldiers who hadn’t yet met in battle, “Have you come to surrender yourself and your crown? You, oh cruel queen of the day, who forces your royal sister to cower in your shadow when it should be her standing in your place! Surrender; allow Queen Luna to rule Equestria alone and keep her from me no longer, and I shall allow you to live. Otherwise, I shall have to kill you and all your army!”

“I have not come to surrender to you, tyrant!” Celestia called back, magically amplifying her own voice, and a long laugh carried over the Northern army, “I have come to dethrone you, to save your people from your evil!”

Sombra continued to laugh, which Celestia took as either refusal or madness. Either way works for me. She ordered the Equestrian army to attack, and as the command was relayed, they began to rush the Northern forces. Before the armies met, a long line of jagged black crystals that matched the new appearance of the Crystal City erupted from the ground, slicing through Celestia’s soldiers and flinging bodies and pieces of ponies into the air. Hundreds died in seconds. A battlefield spell? Near enough, at least. If that is how he wants to do things, then I’ll oblige him. A field of fire cut through Sombra’s ranks, burning a wide swath that the rest of the army shied away from.

Celestia deftly reflected a magical attack that would have torn her in half. So, you just wanted to draw me out and determine my location. Sombra attempted to strike at Celestia again, this time his spell absorbed by one of the shields she’d woven around herself before battle. Well, it works both ways, Sombra. As the armies began slaughtering each other, Celestia deflected directed attacks while chanting quickly under her breath. The sun’s light grew brighter, and its rays were directed towards the spot in the enemy army where Celestia knew Sombra stood. Flames burst up all around the alicorn king as he attempted to weather the assault. Ponies around him became torches as they were consumed, only the king surviving within a bubble of protection that continued to shrink.

He sent tendrils of dark crystal snaking through the Equestrian army before teleporting out of the zone of danger. King Sombra took to the sky, dark wings outstretched and lightning sparking between his feathers. Celestia redirected her attacks, but Sombra surrounded himself with a cloud of darkness. Even that could not stop her solar fury for long, but a veil was drawn across the sun’s light, blunting Celestia’s attacks. Dark aurorae flitted across the sky, and some even descended from above to cut through the ranks of Equestrians.

Redirecting her efforts, Celestia reached out with her sorcery and tore up the ground around her. Shards of stone as large as the solar alicorn flew through the air toward where Sombra hovered, piercing his shroud of darkness and putting an end to the attack of the aurorae, though some still remained in the sky to blot out the sun. Sombra released his concealing shield and hurled stones back at Celestia while ducking around or magically crushing those that she was firing at him. The two of them were getting nowhere like this—except that the falling deflected or shattered stones crushed more Equestrian soldiers than Sombra’s—but the alicorn king was the first to change things up. Multiple shards of rock flew toward Celestia, shattering into even more pieces as they neared her.

Celestia conjured a shield around herself to deflect the attack and batted away some of the larger pieces with other spells. The cores of the original stones were unaffected by her magic and were not stopped by her shield, piercing through as if it was mist. Celestia reeled as five stones circled her, penning her in, and her magic was abruptly dulled. Dimeritium! The magic-blocking stones surrounded her, but they hadn’t cut her off from her ability to do sorcery just yet. Before she could fly or teleport away, however, the soil around the stones shifted toward Celestia, tightening the dimeritium cage until she was completely restrained. No spells she tried to cast would work, and she felt a great emptiness within herself.

Sombra was diving toward Celestia now for the coup de grâce, lips pulled back in a feral grin. The soldiers around her bravely came to her defense, but it was pointless. Arrows flew up at Sombra, but he crushed them into splinters and threw them back into the eyes of his attackers. Their blinded screams ended as he spun a circle of fire through their ranks and turned them to ash.

“I have defeated the great Celestia!” the king announced as he alighted in front of her, “Your reign ends today!”

King Sombra gave a blood-chilling laugh, revealing his pointed teeth, and purple mist fanned out from his eyes. Celestia struggled to break free, but she was totally constricted by the heavy chunks of dimeritium. She tried to dig away at the ground to loosen her confinement, but her armored hooves couldn’t scrape away the soil fast enough. Sombra would arrive before she could escape.

“Stop!” Luna yelled as she ran between the two alicorns. She had finally managed to bring herself to leave the royal tent and face Sombra.

“Luna, my beloved!” Sombra called joyously, unfazed when Luna recoiled, “At last, we can be together!”

“No!” Luna replied emphatically, “You are not yourself! Please, if there is anything left of Boreal in you, then listen to me. Do not do this. Abandon your cruelty and surrender.”

King Sombra seemed to pause for a moment, but then shook his head.

“You are confused, Luna, but you will not be once she is dead,” Sombra said, pointing with a magnificent wing at Celestia, still trapped in her dimeritium prison, “Once she is gone, we can be together. Now, step aside.”

“No,” Luna said.

“Very well,” Sombra growled, and the ground curled up toward Luna, rolling her away.

Sombra advanced on Celestia again, who stared back at him with eyes shining with anger and defiance. The cloud cover tore apart above the two alicorns, revealing the twilight sky, with stars barely visible in the heavens. The moon swung into view, and its light beamed down on Sombra and Celestia. Sombra was frozen in place, and not just because he was shocked that Luna had acted against him. Tears leaked from her eyes as she held him where he was, examining what had become of her dearest one. Perhaps her sister was right and there was no way to save Emperor Boreal, but she had to try. None of the books she’d read during her research had said anything about this, but she attempted to delve into his mind and cure whatever magical sickness had infected him. All she found was darkness, a dense ball of thorny evil and hate. She shifted the ground around Celestia to let her sister break free while continuing to search for something, anything that had not gone wrong in Boreal’s mind. She thought for an instant she could see some light struggling to peak through the center, but it was there one moment and gone the next, along with everything else. King Sombra had teleported away to escape from Celestia, who was now free and furious.

“He went to the castle,” Celestia said as she opened a portal, “Come, sister. Let us end this.”

Luna obediently followed her elder sister through the portal, into the Crystal Castle. The floors, walls, and ceilings no longer shone and sparkled. Like the rest of the Crystal City, the corruption of the Crystal Heart had either turned them to dark obsidian or returned them to their actual stony appearance. The sisters strode into the throne room, where fires blazing around the pillars provided some light to the ominous scene.

Luna’s mind couldn’t dismiss that moment when she thought she’d sensed some good remaining in Sombra’s heart. Had it just been a desperate fantasy, or had it really been there? If it was the latter, then perhaps he wasn’t too far gone after all. He would be soon, and they needed to find him before it was too late. She was about to say as much to Celestia, but a shadow detached itself from the surrounding darkness and launched itself at her sister.

Celestia struck out with her partisan and deflected the swing of Sombra’s double-bill. She knew the attack was coming. Of course she did; they were battling from the moment we entered the throne room. In her concern for whatever was left of Boreal within Sombra, she’d failed to notice that her sister and the Shadow King were throwing spells and counter-spells at each other in an attempt to subdue their opponent.

Luna hesitated on the sidelines. Sombra and Celestia swung their weapons around as they danced back and forth, only infrequently managing to slip past their enemy’s defenses and strike armor. For somepony who hadn’t been an alicorn for very long, it appeared that Sombra had mastered the art of using pole weapons unique to pegasi and alicorns, making use of mouth and wings both to guide and direct his double-bill around in arcs that would have been impossible for his former self. Celestia was forced to retreat more than once to avoid one of the hooked ends of his weapon from cracking a wingbone or penetrating her chin.

“Luna!” Celestia yelled telepathically to her sister, unable to spare her mouth for long enough without compromising her defenses.

Luna was jolted out of her hesitancy by the desperation in Celestia’s call. Surely Boreal was gone for good, and there would be no saving him from Sombra. She rushed to her sister’s aid, spinning her spontoon toward Boreal’s—Sombra’s—back. The King in the North spun around, blocking Luna’s attack with one end of his double-bill while holding off Celestia with the other. He looked emotionally, if not physically wounded by her attack. With a shove, he pushed back both of his opponents.

The three ponies twirled and jumped around, using wings to hover and wield weapons and disorient opponents. They traveled around the throne room, using pillars and the dual thrones set up at the room’s head as cover. Sometimes, a spell would break past defenses and there would be a momentary flash of fire, lightning, or ice before the clashing of blades became the only visible fight. They whirled and wheeled in the empty space where nearly eight decades earlier, Boreal had fought Rap’stuk to save the Crystal Empire from tyranny.

After a rapid series of thrusts, King Sombra caught a hook of his double-bill beneath Luna’s spontoon and yanked it from her grasp. His weapon was poised to run the lunar queen through, but he hesitated; Luna was so stunned that she didn’t move. Celestia’s partisan swung toward Sombra’s head, and he ducked out of the way before knocking Luna over the head with the staff of his weapon. He and Celestia both tried to telekinetically push the disoriented Luna away, and she went flying into a pillar, hitting her head again and knocking her completely unconscious.

“No!” Sombra yelled, and he redoubled his attacks on Celestia.

His rage did him no good, however, and Celestia soon brought her blade down on the shaft of his weapon and split it in half. He tried to fight with the larger broken pieces, but the balance was all off from what he was used to, and several cuts came close to injuring him fatally. He heated the bill’s blade to yellow-hot and flung it at Celestia before propelling himself away with his wings. The solar queen was unfazed, knocking the blade away, but it had given Sombra enough time to pick up Luna’s spontoon.

The dance of blades resumed, but Sombra was at a disadvantage with the unfamiliar weapon, and he sustained several more injuries. He still managed to get in a few hits of his own, including one that gashed Celestia’s cheek and tore a cheekguard off her helmet. It was the last injury he would inflict on her, though, as she blocked his next swing and locked their weapons. Celestia lowered her head and charged forward, driving her armored horn through a gap in his breastplate that had opened up during the fighting, gritting her teeth as the attack jarred her skull.

Sombra staggered back off of Celestia’s horn, dropping Luna’s spontoon. It hadn’t been a fatal blow, but it had been serious. Before he could recover from the shock, Celestia jumped into the air and swung her partisan around. The blade sliced cleanly through bone and flesh, separating Sombra’s wings from his body. Sombra roared as he fell to the ground, clutching at the bloody stumps on his back.

“It’s over,” Celestia proclaimed stonily as she held her blade to his neck.

Luna’s vision was foggy as she regained consciousness, and everything sounded echoey. Her limbs felt numb, but she could still sense where they were; she’d be able to move in a minute, but for now it was best to stay put. She tried raising her head and was struck by a wave of dizziness that confined her to slow movements only. As her vision began to refocus, she could see Sombra, a unicorn once more, and Celestia poised over him. Although her hearing was still muffled, she could make out most of the words that passed between them.

“What, not going to offer me the chance to surrender?” Sombra laughed through a bloody grin, meanwhile trying to staunch the streams of blood from his back and chest, “If I did surrender, would you accept? What fictitious story would you tell my darling Luna? That I’d tried to escape and had unfortunately been killed? Would you keep me in the deep cells beneath the Castle of the Sun?”

Celestia said nothing, but she pressed her blade closer to Sombra’s throat.

“Are you happy now?” Sombra inquired.

“I don’t see why emotion should play into eliminating a creature like you,” Celestia replied.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? The Crystal Empire for your own?” Sombra asked, “Well, it’s not everything you wanted, but it’ll have to do, won’t it? Except … I have a little surprise for you. It’s amazing the kinds of sorcery one can learn when one really looks. I’ve laid a curse on all my kingdom which I think you’ll find is unbreakable. By vanquishing me, you’ve lost everything you wanted. Yes, everything! The crystal and gold mines, the bountiful fields, the sturdy timber, and me. All is lost to you.”

“You don’t seem lost to me; you’re right here, and so is everything else,” Celestia stated.

“I’ve been lost to you a long time, Celestia, and that is what brought us to this moment,” Sombra said, “Yes, I did not fail to notice how you looked at me during your first embassy here. You desired me for yourself, but instead it was Luna who caught my eye. You’ve never forgiven her for that, have you?”

No. That can’t be true. But when Luna concentrated on Celestia’s face, she thought she could see a begrudging admission there.

“How could you forgive her?” Sombra continued, “You’re the elder sister, the most powerful alicorn, the queen whom everypony adores! How dare Luna upstage you! Our love must have burned you inside, Celestia! So, you lied to Luna; you turned her against me. Face it, everything that has happened here is because of your jealousy!”

Celestia didn’t permit Sombra to speak any longer, and she swung her partisan around, beheading him. As Sombra’s corpse crumpled to the floor, the world turned white and cold. Distantly, the sound of coarse laughter could be heard.

***

Queen Celestia and Queen Luna stood together, battered and bloodied, in the Crystal Mountains, overlooking what had once been the Crystal Empire. Now, there was nothing but a blizzard that stretched as far as the eye could see. That was truly all there was; the alicorns had searched for a time, but the Crystal City—every town, village, and pony—had been replaced by an empty plain of ice and snow. Sombra had made the entirety of the North vanish, along with whatever had been left of the Equestrian army. With so many dead and nothing gained from it, there would be hard times and unrest back home. Well, not quite everything was lost; the bits of land outside of the North that Sombra had ruled, including Vanhuv’r Laht, were now part of the Kingdom of Equestria. Even so, the loss had been catastrophic.

“He really did lay a curse over all the North,” Celestia commented, stating the obvious.

“Did he say anything else?” Luna asked.

After Sombra’s death, the two alicorns had been stranded in the snowstorm, trying to get their bearings. Still disoriented, Luna had relied on Celestia to pull her out. Her elder sister didn’t know she’d been conscious for the final interaction with Sombra, and Luna doubted her own memory sometimes. Had that entire exchange between Celestia and Sombra really happened, or had she imagined it? By now, she was fairly certain that it really had occurred and that Sombra hadn’t been lying. What reason would he have had, not knowing that Luna was able to overhear? She also wondered if it had been Boreal speaking at the end; he sounded almost remorseful about becoming Sombra, though the blame had been pinned on Celestia.

“Nothing else,” Celestia said, “He tried to kill me after that, thinking the revelation of a curse would make me drop my guard, and I was forced to end him instead. I’m sorry, Luna.”

“Thank you, sister,” Luna said, though the words stung her mouth.

Celestia had lied to her. Sombra had been right. He hadn’t been the one to blame for all this pain and suffering at all. Luna should have been looking to the one who’d been to blame for her pain for far longer. For almost six centuries, Celestia and Luna had been queens of Equestria, but her sister had always fancied herself the greater ruler, overshadowing Luna and blocking her out. No more—soon and forevermore, day would submit to night, not the other way around. It would take much effort to bring down her sister, but Luna had plenty of time to plan. She was an alicorn, after all. Perhaps she could even find some help within that book that Sombra had left her …

Epilogue

Epilogue

Year 1001 of the 4th Age

Lilian set down his lute as he finished the story. The last of the guardponies had fallen asleep around the point in the story that Archbishop Fethrus had appealed for help, but he’d kept on with the tale anyway. Unless he was being thrown out or pursued by the authorities (or angry husbands), it wasn’t his style to leave a performance unfinished. Apparently, the guards had deemed his story satisfactory, for they hadn’t thrown him back out into the storm and had allowed him food and shelter for the night. He would likely have to keep the performances coming if he wanted to stay here more than tonight, though. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take long to gather whatever stories these ponies had to share so that he could get out of here soon. The bard didn’t know what had possessed him to come here in the first place.

The Ballad of the King in the North had tweaked something in his mind, however. Officially, there were no names for the two queens who’d come to visit Emperor Boreal, but with the revelations in Cant’r Laht after Luna’s return, Celestia and Luna seemed to fit. Could it all have really happened? The tale was a way of explaining how the Frozen North had become what it was, but maybe there was more substance to it than that. Why had Celestia ordered an outpost to be constructed here, of all places, unless she thought the North might one day return? And if it could return, could the Shadow King come back as well? Lilian shivered.

***

In the farthest reaches of the Frozen North, in the shadow of Mount Everhoof, there was a cave. This cave had once been a mine from which ponies had extracted gemstones for status or for use by sorceresses. Nostracom the Wise had even once visited this place, and from the crystals within had fashioned the Crystal Heart. The last of the gems had been stripped for nefarious purposes during the end of King Sombra’s reign, and it had been abandoned before the battle on the Plains of Amon, the slaves sent to work elsewhere. Ice coated the openings now, making entry nearly impossible.

Deep within the cave, the darkness moved in a way that was imperceptible without light. Green flames flared up in the center of the chamber, casting shadows with the stalagmites. These shadows began to congeal into the form of a pony with a long, flowing cape. Two burning eyes appeared in the shadowy figure, purple mist trailing from the edges. Victorious laughter echoed in the cavern, with nopony to hear it.