The gray light of the lantern filtered through the skeletal branches of the trees behind the Edger mansion. It was that hollow, silent hour when the world seemed to hold its breath, caught between the horrors of the night and the uncertainty of the day. The air was frigid, smelling of damp moss, old stone, and the metallic tang of blood that still lingered on the wind.
In a small clearing, far enough from the house to be private but close enough to be guarded, the sound of a shovel biting into the earth rhythmically broke the silence.
Thuck. Thuck. Thuck.
Verra didn't use magic. She didn't ask the earth to part for her. She dug with her bare hands and a rusted iron spade she had found in the gardener's shed. Her knuckles were raw, the skin split and caked with dark soil, but she didn't feel the pain. The physical labor was the only thing keeping her soul from drifting away into the void of grief.
Beside her, Elsa moved in silence. The Elf girl's silver hair was matted with sweat and dirt, her fine silk dress torn and stained with the soot of the forge. She helped Verra lift the heavy stones and roots, her face a mask of stone. Neither of them spoke. Words were useless things now, fragile and empty. They just dug.
Finally, the hole was deep enough. Verra dropped the spade. It hit the ground with a dull clang. She turned toward the small bundle wrapped in a clean white linen sheet, the only luxury they could afford for the dead.
Verra knelt in the dirt, her knees sinking into the soft, displaced earth. She reached out, her fingers trembling as she touched the silhouette of Loreth's head through the cloth.
"I'm sorry, my flower," Verra whispered, her voice a ghost of itself. "I'm so sorry."
A single tear, heavy and hot, fell from her cheek and vanished into the linen.
"I should have taken you back," Verra said, her voice growing stronger, fueled by a sudden, sharp ache. "In our home... in the high forests where the sunlight tastes like honey... I would have laid you beneath the Great Oak. Alongside your father. He's waiting for us there, Loreth. He's waiting in the soil of our ancestors."
She choked back a sob, her shoulders were heaving.
"But the humans..." Verra's voice turned into a snarl, a sound of pure, unadulterated hatred. "They have control of our borders. Our towers. Our Land's. They took our forests, And now, they tell us where we can rot."
She looked up at the gray sky, her eyes wide and bloodshot. "I can't even take you home back. I have to leave you here, in the cold dirt ground of an enemy's estate. Under the shadow of a human house. Forgive me, Loreth. Forgive me for being too weak to protect you. Forgive me for letting them trap us in this cage. Forgive your mother, for being a useless."
Elsa stood a few feet back, her hands made fists with anger and frustration. She watched Verra lower the body into the dark trench. She watched the mother carefully arrange the linen, as if tucking a child into bed for the night.
Verra began to push the dirt back in. She didn't use the shovel this time. She used her hands, pulling the cold earth over her daughter, grain by grain, until the white linen disappeared. When the mound was finally level, Verra placed a single, smooth river stone at the head of the grave.
She stood up slowly, her joints popping. The grief that had been a wild, screaming thing in her chest had settled into something different. It was no longer a fire; it was a cold, heavy weight. It was a foundation of something else entirely.
Verra looked at Elsa, but she didn't see a friend or a leader. She saw a survivor.
"I'm going inside," Verra said. Her voice was flat, devoid of the warmth it usually held when she spoke to the younger elves. "Eon will need the others. They need to be fed too."
She didn't wait for a response. She turned and walked toward the mansion, her back straight, her steps heavy and purposeful. She didn't look back at the grave once. She had left her heart in that hole; now, she only had room for the mission.
Elsa did not follow.
She stayed in the clearing, the wind whipping her silver hair around her face. She looked down at the fresh earth, at the single stone Verra had placed. The sun was beginning to rise now, a pale, sickly yellow orb bleeding through the clouds, but it brought no warmth to the High Elf.
Elsa's face remained expressionless, but inside, a storm was brewing.
"How many?" she asked softly. Her voice wasn't addressed to anyone, just the silence. "How many more, Loreth?"
She closed her eyes, and for a moment, she saw the faces of all those she had lost. Her parents in the first raid. Her sister at the slave markets. Her friends who had died of fever or abuse in the basement. Each face was a brand on her soul by this point.
"I also thought this time would be different," Elsa whispered. She felt a phantom weight on her chest, the memory of the shadow mages' pressure. "When Eon rose... when he took the Marquess... I really thought the cycle had broken. I thought we were the ones holding the knife now."
She thought of Eon, lying broken on the dining room floor, his mana drained, his eyes hollow with exhaustion. He had almost died. A single masked man and a handful of mercenaries had nearly toppled the pillar of their hope.
"We were completely helpless," Elsa said, the words tasting like ash. "Once again. We played at being masters, but the moment the humans stopped pretending to follow the rules, we crumbled. I stood there and watched them strike everything we tried to build down as if we are just playthings in their mind. I watched them put holes in you, but could do nothing."
She gripped her own forearms, her nails digging into the skin.
"Mercy?" she muttered. "Eon speaks of logic. He thinks we can be their allies. But you cannot negotiate with a storm. You cannot trick a wolf into not being hungry."
She looked at the mansion, where the humans, the "servants", and the "Marquess" resided. They were the reason for this. Their world, their greed, their constant, gnawing need to possess and destroy.
A cold, dark clarity settled over Elsa. The silver-blue of her eyes seemed to harden, turning into the color of a frozen lake.
"No more," she whispered.
She knelt by the grave, not out of grief, but as if taking an altar call. She pressed her palm against the cold dirt.
"I vow it here, Loreth. I vow it to the earth that holds you. No more mercy. No more hesitation. If the humans want a monster, I will show them what an Elf becomes when she has nothing left to lose. I will be the shield that Eon cannot be. I will be the blade that strikes before the shadows can reach us."
She stood up, her posture changing. The softness that had always defined Elsa, the maternal care she showed the younger slaves, was gone now. It was replaced by a sharp, lethal edge. She needed to be stronger. She needed to delve into the ancient, forgotten magics of her bloodline, the ones that the humans had tried to burn out of history. She has to be powerful enough that no shadow, no mercenary, and no Marquess would ever make her feel helpless again.
"Rest well," Elsa said to the grave. "When you wake up in the next life, this world will be different then. I will make sure of it."
She turned and walked back toward the mansion, her eyes already scanning the perimeter, calculating the defenses, marking the weak points. The war had moved from the forge to her heart.
The sound of thunder rolled across the plains, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
It was the sound of hooves. Hundreds of them, striking the hard-packed dirt of the main road with a rhythmic, punishing violence.
Captain Valen leaned low over his horse's neck, his teeth bared against the wind. His eyes were bloodshot, the lingering fog of the previous night's wine long gone, replaced by a frantic, jagged adrenaline. His cloak whipped behind him like a tattered flag of war.
"CAPTAIN! THE HORSES!"
Grom, his Vice-Captain, was pulling up alongside him, his face covered in a layer of gray dust. Grom's own horse was lathered in white foam, its sides heaving with a desperate, whistling breath.
"THEY CAN'T KEEP THIS UP!" Grom screamed over the wind. "WE'VE BEEN AT A FULL GALLOP FOR TWO HOURS! THE STALLIONS ARE GOING TO BURST THEIR HEARTS!"
Valen didn't even look at him. He kicked his spurs into his mount's flanks, drawing a spurt of blood. The horse let out a pained neigh but lunged forward, its hooves kicking up a fresh storm of dust that blinded the soldiers riding behind them.
"I DON'T CARE!" Valen roared back. "IF THEY DIE, WE RUN ON FOOT! MOVE, YOU BASTARDS!"
Grom bit his lip, looking back at the long line of the Diablo Unit. The soldiers were a mess. Some were swaying in their saddles, their faces pale from the hangover and the sheer exhaustion. Their armor was unbuckled, their weapons bouncing haphazardly against their thighs. This wasn't an army; it was a panicked mob.
"Sir, if we reach the estate like this, we'll be useless in a fight!" Grom tried one last time. "We need to rest for just ten minutes! Let the horses water!"
Valen finally turned his head. His eyes were wild, filled with a primal, suffocating fear.
"Darius is dead, Grom! I am sure of it." Valen's voice was a jagged rasp. "The Marquess of War! One of the strongest men in the kingdom! God knows how he died. But he died for sure."
He turned back to the road, his grip on the reins so tight his knuckles were white.
"What if Alaric is next?" Valen's voice dropped, the wind almost swallowing the words. "The Life Light was dimming. Flickering. If Alaric dies... if both Lords are lost on my watch... do you know what the Royal family will do to us? They won't just kill us. They'll make us wish for a merciful death."
The fear in Valen's mind was a physical thing. He could see it in the darkness behind his eyelids, the crown prince, a man who makes even the Shadow Mages look like children, standing over him. The failure was absolute. Not to mention, Valen had been drinking and whoring while his master was being butchered. The shame was a poison in his blood.
He had to get there fast. He had to see it for himself. He had to believe that Alaric was still alive, that there was something left to save, something left to protect. Because if both Lords were dead, Valen was a dead man walking.
"FASTER!" Valen screamed at the sky, his voice breaking. "FASTER, YOU WORTHLESS CURS!"
He didn't care about the horses. He didn't care about the men. He only cared about the distance. Every mile felt like a mile of his own skin being flayed.
Behind him, a horse stumbled, its legs giving out. It went down in a cloud of dust, throwing its rider into the ditch. Valen didn't even turn his head. He kept his eyes fixed on the horizon, where the distant, dark silhouette of the Edger estate was finally beginning to rise against the morning sun.
In his mind, he saw the face of Eon, the arrogant Elf with the calm, arrogant eyes.
'If you touched them', Valen thought, a dark, murderous prayer. 'If you had anything to do with this, Elf... I will turn that mansion into a pyre. I will hear you scream for a thousand years.'
The storm of dust trailed behind them for miles, a gray shroud that covered the path of the coming vengeance. The Diablo Unit was coming, and they were bringing the desperation of men who had everything to lose.
Inside the mansion, the air was still.
Eon opened his eyes. The room was dim, the curtains drawn to keep out the light. His body felt like it had been crushed under a mountain. His chest was tight, every breath a reminder of the cracked ribs that hadn't healed, even after taking multiple potions.
He looked to his left. Elora was still there, curled up on the floor beside his bed, her hand clutching a piece of his blanket even in her sleep. She looked small. Vulnerable.
To his right, Verra was sitting in a chair, her eyes open, staring at the door. She was holding a kitchen knife in her lap, her thumb tracing the edge of the blade over and over again.
She didn't look at him when he stirred. She didn't offer a smile.
"They're coming," Verra said. Her voice was cold, empty of the warmth he had grown used to.
Eon struggled to sit up, hissing with the pain. "Who?"
"The horses," Verra said. "I can feel them through the floor. A lot of them. Moving fast."
Eon froze. He closed his eyes and focused. He didn't have the sense of Verra, but his High elf ears could at least hear the sounds.
Verra was right. The ground was humming. A rhythmic, heavy thrum that grew louder with every heartbeat.
"Valen," Eon whispered.
He looked at his hands. They were pale, steady, but he knew how little strength lay behind them. He looked at the room, at the broken girl and the grieving mother.
The time for mourning was over. The time for healing was over. The world was coming for them, and this time, they were not ready for it.
"Verra," Eon said, his voice regaining its authority, though it was thin. "Wake the others. Tell Hans to prepare the entrance. And tell Elsa..."
He paused, thinking something for a second.
"Tell Elsa to be ready. We aren't hiding anymore."
Verra stood up, the knife disappearing into the folds of her dress. She looked at Eon, and for a second, he saw the fire in her eyes, the same fire that had burned in the forge.
"We were never hiding, Eon," she said. "We were just waiting."
She walked out of the room, leaving Eon alone in the silence.
He leaned his head back against the headboard, listening to the approaching thunder. The Diablo Unit was coming. Captain Valen was coming. "They must have figured out, we tricked them'.
Eon gripped the edge of the bed, his knuckles turning white.
'Let them come', he thought, his blue eyes flashing with a spark of Heat Manipulation. 'Let them see what happens when you push a cornered person too far.'
The storm was on their doorstep. And the Edger house was ready to burn.
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