“The pursuit of magic is as infinite as the pursuit of knowledge and no great power may be used until it is first understood.”

Darkness surrounded Mi Amore Serenade, the Crystal Empress, who sat alone in the depths of Duke Doré Langue’s dungeon; the stallion whom she and her husband had placed so much trust in that they’d positioned him as steward of the Crystal Empire’s throne in the unlikely event that they were unable to rule. Such betrayal was the least of the empress’s worries at that moment however, because the sound of approaching hoofsteps echoed somewhere out in the oppressive blackness, sending a sickening shiver through her body. There was no way for Serenade to tell how long it had been since she’d awoken as the duke’s prisoner, unable to use her magic due to some unknown curse that had been placed upon her while she was unconscious, but every so often, Doré Langue would take a trip down into the depth of his lightless, damp prison to check up on his captive. He would stand above Serenade, spouting insane ideas of acquiring a power beyond anything that the world had ever seen and all the while trying to use his magic to force thoughts into her mind. At first the empress had assumed that the traitorous duke had gone insane and fought back against his mental attacks, but then he had brought another unicorn with him into her cell.

Though Doré Langue’s demented ranting had made Empress Serenade uneasy, it was this other unicorn who truly terrified her. The first time he had come into her prison, the younger pony hadn’t spoken a single word, choosing to stand back and watch as the duke had berated her and screamed about getting his due. This mysterious other stallion’s dark green eyes had stared into the empress’s sapphire ones from the darkness, boring into her in a way that his companion’s magic never could. It took three more visits before the menacing stallion had finally spoken to her, calling himself Sombra. He showed her a book on that visit; a book of ancient spells and forgotten magic. The intimidating stallion also talked of gaining power, but unlike the duke, whose speeches sounded like nothing more than impassioned delusions of grandeur, Sombra spoke calmly and with an unwavering conviction that chilled the empress to her core. She believed every terrible word that the unicorn spoke and it frightened her totally and completely.

There was a scraping sound as the key to her cell door was thrust into its lock, followed by a sharp clicking and the grating of rusted metal against rusted metal as somepony forced it open. Serenade wanted to close her eyes, but fear held her lids in place. The empress stared towards the entrance, shivering in the dim light that spilled in; silhouetting Sombra as he slowly entered the musty chamber in which she was imprisoned. Torchlight reflected off of his green eyes as he turned around and pulled the door closed behind him, leaving the room pitch black once again.

“Now now, my dear, sweet Empress Serenade,” Sombra cooed to her in a voice dripping with faux concern, “there is no need to look so afraid. I didn’t come here to cause you too much harm… yet.” The black stallion took a few, slow steps towards the alicorn and she tried to back away, but the chains around her slender neck and limbs dug into her flesh and held her in place.

“Wh- why are you doing this? What do you want from me?” Empress Serenade asked, her voice betraying the terror that she felt inside. “You two have poisoned my husband’s mind and taken me prisoner, so why not just claim the throne now? Why keep me chained up down here?” The empress choked with emotion as she questioned her captor, but no tears spilled down her dark pink cheeks. They had long since dried up and worries about what the two vile stallions were going to do with her beloved Adagio were to blame.

“I am afraid that I cannot claim credit for the emperor’s current condition,” Sombra replied as he took another step towards her in the darkness. “That victory was thanks to my former teacher, Doré Langue. I must admit that I didn’t think it would even be possible for him to get inside the mind of an immortal, but I suppose he is nothing if not persistent when it comes to grasping the power that he feels he is owed,” he calmly explained. “In fact, this entire plan was his idea, believe it or not.”

“You’re both monsters!” Serenade screamed at him in a voice rasping from dehydration.

“I suppose from where you’re standing, or sitting as it were, the duke would seem like a monster, but you would be wrong about that,” the large, dark grey stallion replied with a smile, as he leaned in closer to Serenade’s pale face. “You see, Doré Langue is just a stallion like any other, but sadly, being born into royalty has left him with an heir of entitlement and a craving for that which he cannot have. Those were the qualities that made him yearn for the powers of an immortal, but they are also the qualities which make him weak. I, on the other hoof, have had to struggle and fight to get where I am today, but that has tempered me and made me strong.” He took another step and the empress cringed. “I am the true monster here, your majesty. It is a quality to be admired, would you not agree?”

“Go to Tartarus,” Serenade replied before spitting in Sombra’s face. He simply smiled back at her and wiped a hoof across his sticky, grey cheek.

“That is very unbecoming language for somepony of your status to be using, your majesty,” Sombra told the empress in a measured tone, before suddenly striking her across the face, breaking the skin above Serenade’s right eye and knocking her to the cold, stone floor, where she lay in a daze. “Just because I haven’t yet figured out how to destroy you, does not mean that I cannot cause you pain, Empress Mi Amore Serenade,” he added vehemently, as his horn began to glow with magical energy. The empress squeezed her sapphire colored eyes shut as electric pain washed over her entire body, sending her into violent convulsions that rattled the chains which bound her to the wall.

“Please… no more…” Serenade begged the stallion as he stood, towering over her helpless form with a wicked smile spreading across his features.

“I am getting very close to unleashing the power that I have been so desperately trying to attain,” Sombra stated, as he turned away from the shivering alicorn. “Enjoy your last few days alive.” He glanced back to the empress as he said this, enjoying the sight of her malnourished body curled into a shuddering heap for a few moments and then he was gone. Serenade was left to the darkness again, but given a choice between the lonely nothingness and Sombra, she would have picked the darkness every time.

Duke Doré Langue was waiting for his former student turned partner in the main hall of his mansion when Sombra finally ascended from the sprawling basement dungeon far below. The older stallion was wearing a scowl as Sombra walked over to him, smiling all the while. Doré Langue hadn’t known that his former student was planning on visiting the empress and judging by the look on his crimson face, Sombra assumed that the duke wasn’t very happy with him. The young unicorn didn’t care though; his former mentor was little more than a crazy old fool these days, so he ignored the glaring, orange gaze and continued right past the irritated duke, taking slow, casual strides as he crossed the polished floors.

“What were you doing down there?” Doré Langue questioned, his tone giving away the fact that he was practically seething with rage. “I’ve told you not to enter Serenade’s cell without first asking my permission. She is my prisoner after all.” The younger stallion didn’t even acknowledge that the aristocrat had been speaking to him. “Don’t you dare ignore me, Sombra!” Doré Langue screamed after his former student, who finally turned around to face him.

“I just needed to test one of the book’s spells to see if I had figured it out,” Sombra replied cockily. “Since you insisted that I stop torturing your servants, I decided to try it out on the empress.” The duke opened his mouth to respond, but seemed to be caught between the agitation of having his orders disobeyed and curiosity as to whether or not his partner had managed to perform a spell from Starswirl’s book.

“Well, did it work or did it not?” Doré Langue asked him after a moment. The aristocratic pony’s eyes flashed with wicked glee as the dark grey stallion laughed at his question.

“Oh, it worked wonderfully,” Sombra responded before turning back around and continuing down the hall. Sombra was unpredictable, that much could not be argued, but Doré Langue knew that his former student had an uncanny ability to perform almost any spell that he studied, which made him indispensible in acquiring the power to rule over the Crystal Empire. It was a power that the duke had nurtured in his pupil since the first day he had begun to teach him, all those years ago. Sentimental thoughts like those had no place in the duke’s plans however, so the very instant that Sombra’s erratic nature became a problem, Doré Langue would not hesitate to destroy the willful stallion’s mind. It may have been cruel to think such a thing, but nopony would stand in the way of what the duke knew to be his destiny. He would take the throne and lead the Crystal Empire into a Golden Age, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since before Discord’s reign.

Author's Notes:

I'm thrilled to be starting on book 2 of The Crystal War trilogy and I hope you all are just as excited to be reading. You can expect much of the same action and emotional turmoil from the first book, although pushed even further. You may have noticed that the rating has been set to mature, but that's mostly as a precaution, so you don't have to worry about this story getting too violent or sexual. Anywho, we open with the Crystal Empress being held prisoner by Doré Langue and Sombra, who seem to be nearing the completion of their plan...