Excerpt: WW

Time seemed different in Holdenfrue, a small place rich in the history of magic. The wizards had first taught men, ages ago and forgotten, how to control the flacid and decayed machinery in Holdenfrue. Incantations were begun here that brought too life the ancient relics of a magical world and they, the wizards, had turned the world into a place of wonder.
Holdenfrue still felt magical, though few wizards still called the city home. Most had abandoned it long ago for the school in the Sinking City. There they had renewed the wisdom of their kin, for wizards were kin not by blood but by power and will. For a wizard was born and thank the gods for it. Men would choose for themselves power over intellect, gold over wisdom. No, it was better that the universe and the Tumult chose who a wizard would be.
But then, maybe the universe was not always the best to decide who would be a wizard. Niras, hidden from the lights of Holdenfrue's main street, within the deepening shadows of midnight, thought men deserved a say in their destinies. He cared little for the wizards, and for their mage politics. No one was above the Tumult, and the way he saw it they were all but Skak pieces in it's great plan. No matter the plans that wizards set in motion he found that the will of the universe molded outcomes to suit it's own immortal desire.