Warden's Rite

By Jazzanae Warmsley

Set in Tiremoore, a parallel 21^st century realm where magic governs justice and resurrection is never without consequence.

Warden’s Rite (Chapter 1)

In the twilight-bound city of Tiremoore, where the sky flickered like candlelight and the laws of nature bent to the will of ancient rites, the dead did not rest as they waited. 

Jazleen, the last living descendant of the Warden bloodline, stood in the sanctum of her family’s crumbling estate. Her green robe shimmered with protective glyphs, her hands trembling above the lifeless body of Ash, the man she loved and the one she had betrayed.

Ash had been Tiremoore’s fire cast protector, a spell forged warrior marked by the golden “W” on his chest – a sigil of Warden’s Rite. But the rite demanded balance. For every life saved, one must be taken. Jazleen had broken that law once, sparing Ash from death during the Sledge of Hollowmere. The Punishment came swiftly: Ash’s soul was severed, his body left hollow, and the Mirror Court – Keepers of the Rite – claimed their due.

The Forbidden Spell (Chapter 2)

Now, in the year 2121, Jazleen prepared to invoke the Warden’s Rite once more – not to save Tiremoore, but to bring Ash back. The ritual was outlawed; its cost unknown. But love, in Tiremoore, was the most dangerous kind of magic.

The chamber pulsed with green energy. Ash’s body lay on the checked altar; a wound on his neck still fresh, as if time refused to let him go. Jazleen whispered the incantation, her voice cracking with desperation.

From the fireplace, a child emerged

He was not an ordinary child. He was Ash, reborn and twisted – his soul fractured by the Mirror Court and scattered across dimensions. This version of Ash was younger, crueler, and knew things no child should know.

“You’re not ready” he said, crouching with a grin that split his face unnaturally. “You think love can rewrite the Rite?” Jazleen didn’t answer; she cast the spell.

The Mark of Judicium (Chapter 3)

As the resurrection spell surged through the sanctum, Jazleen felt the golden sigil burn into her chest-not a “W” for warden, but a jagged “J”, etched in flame and memory. She gasped, thinking it was the mark of the joined.

But the child-Ash- emerged from the fireplace, his face lit by the flickering red candle, his eyes glinting with cruel delight.

“you thought you were the bridge,” he whispered. “but you were the breach.”

Jazleen staggered back. “What does the J stand for?”

 Ash grinned, impossibly wide. “Judicium”. The final judgement. The courts last word.”

 The mirror court had not made her a vessel. They had made her a sentence. 

The Cruel Trick (Chapter 4)

Ash held up a mirror shard, and in its reflection, Jazleen saw every version of herself –every choice, every betrayal, every moment she tried to cheat death. The mirror court had collected them all.

“You cast rite to bring him back”, Ash said. “But you broke the seal that kept your soul whole.” 

The judicium mark meant Jazleen was now unraveled – her soul split across parallel realities, each one cursed to relive her failure. She would never die, never rest, and never be remembered.  She would exist in fragments, scattered through Tiremoore’s mirrors, whispering warnings no one could hear.

Ash stepped closer, his voice now echoing with the courts decree. “You are no longer caster. You are a consequence.” 

The Sentence That Walks (Chapter 5)

Ash vanished into the fireplace, leaving behind only laughter and smoke. The resurrected Ash now a vessel of the court-walked forward, his eyes empty, his smile mechanical.

Jazleen tried to speak, but her voice fractured into echoes. She was no longer whole. She was judicium- the embodiment of magical punishment, cursed to haunt Tiremoore’s sanctums, unable to love, and unable to forget.

In every mirror, her face flickers- pleading, broken, silent. And the child watches. Because the rite was never about resurrection. 

It was about retribution. 

By Jazzanae Warmsley