Irelia's bones were shattered in dozens of places, yet her mind hurt worse.

  She had been one of the last thrown into the well, discarded once the hunters were done.

  Still, she managed a smile through the fire in her body.

  It’s good that they took me. I could at least endure it. “Unlike some of the others,” she slurred, not caring for her thoughts bleeding out into the world.

  Her tongue went over the shattered remnants of her sharp teeth.

  “Ironic,” she whispered. “We were supposed to be the predators.”

  But suddenly, the sounds of debauchery and celebration from above ceased—and turned to screams. More screams. More sounds of slaughter.

  Has someone returned? Has someone gotten help?

  She felt the warm bodies—most of them underneath her, who had cushioned her fall into the cavern of the well—and smiled grimly.

  Too little, too late.

  Then light shifted, and something descended through the shaft—like one of the Angeli the Church preached about.

  She smiled. So this is what dying is like.

  —

  She awoke lying on familiar ground. Warm forest earth beneath her.

  Irelia kept still, only listening. The well—too real, too painful to be a nightmare.

  Then she remembered the descending angel. Not an angel.

  The memory was fuzzy, but one detail was clear: the brass-tainted armor.

  A High Elf.

  Then she heard them speaking the Imperial Tongue—that posh embellishment of the Old Tongue.

  Heard sounds of soft crying.

  Who is crying? Shame boiled up in her mind like liquid poison. Well, I guess propriety doesn’t matter anymore… if what happened was not a dream.

  She felt a soreness—much reduced, but still a horrible burning sensation all over her body.

  Her broken bones—they had been healed.

  But not everything that can be done to a person can be removed by magic. At least not the magic I would want to have anything to do with.

  She focused on her heart. On alteration. On healing. On nature.

  And slowly, she began strengthening her body.

  I don’t have any weapons, but those are High Elves.

  Soon the sounds of pain began anew. Axes shattering ribs, knives cutting through sinew. Those screams were human.

  I should feel satisfaction, but I am just numb. What do the High Elves think they are achieving here?

  She tried opening her eyes, but the sun was shining straight into her face. She heard voices filled with grim determination and cruelty, others filled with compassion, stiltedly talking the Old Tongue—and some of the voices, mostly those of women, familiar from her tribe and village.

  Then the red light suffusing her eyeballs darkened as a shadow fell onto her. It took all her discipline not to tense up, but she had been a huntress for decades. Not giving herself away to prey had become second nature.

  A voice speaking the Old Tongue with a surprising melodiousness addressed her.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “I would request you attend and hear me.”

  She let out her own breath and opened her eyes.

  An elf wearing matte bronze armor was standing over her. The colors of the empire that had failed so long ago—failed to keep dominion over the humans. She swallowed involuntarily. She had heard of this man. His knife ears—one of them cut off, a scar wounding the otherwise perfect face.

  He held his helmet under one arm, his sword in the other. A sword wet with blood.

  She took in a breath. Fresh blood. Human blood.

  “I would introduce myself, but you’ve already recognized me, yes? I know what happened to you. But I came to talk before I was aware of your fate.”

  Irelia snorted, looking around, seeing the expected scene—awkward High Elves trying to take care of the few surviving women. High Elven soldiers binding the arms and legs of the human slavers, nailing them to the ground, face-down, and cracking open their ribs, readying the salt. The old insult to human hospitality returned with bile.

  The human’s ribs were like wings, lungs salted so the victim died burning—mock angels in agony.

  “Do you think this matters, after what has happened?”

  The man tilted his head to the side, as if giving the matter serious thought.

  “I suppose for you survivors it doesn’t matter at all. Yet other humans will come across this scene and tell stories of an elven village, burned and abandoned—yet the only corpses were humans, their faces rotting masks of tremendous pain. Ever since we started this, there have been fewer raids across the borders. It is horrible, but practical.”

  She snorted. This man’s arrogance. As if her people hadn’t done more to prevent the raids, to reduce the frequency at which the southerners attempted to assert their arrogant ideals of purity and sick desires.

  “Arrogance befitting a man who took a name like yours.”

  He chuckled, surprising her with how melodious it sounded.

  “I cannot deny it. Arrogance and pride are my sins. But those who carry destiny must wear the image it demands.”

  He looked into the distance.

  She let out a long breath and shook her head.

  “Fionell. Heir of Fion. Heir of the man who built the Elven Empire. Yet are you truly more than a brigand?”

  Despite her provocation, despite the terrible insult she had just thrown in his face, he merely smiled.

  “If you ask the humans, you would probably hear that I am less than a brigand. Yet I seek to end it. All of it.”

  She let out another long breath and looked up in the sky, up the old oak.

  “If you want to end it, you already hold a sword in your hand. Let gravity take care of the rest.”

  She felt him studying her for a long while.

  “I guess your situation makes fatalism the natural outlook.”

  She took in a sharp breath.

  “My—”

  He lowered himself, kneeling before her.

  “I am sorry I spoke out of turn. My soul is in turmoil. I came here to talk to you, as I already said—”

  “Then get it done with,” she hissed. “Tell me what the heir of our empire desires of me.”

  She looked at him, and he nodded. After a long while.

  “I shall,” she said, “but allow me to share a little story for context.”

  He grabbed at a pocket and drew out a white pearl. It was dimly glowing—like the light bands at night. Moonlight in a crystal.

  He straightened, undoubtedly unconsciously lining into an orator’s pose that had become second nature.

  “In stories, destiny is always given. Yet in our world, in reality…” He held up the pearl. “It is seized. Seized with bloody hands.”

  Irelia rolled her eyes. “How very poetic. And you even mastered the Old Tongue. Enough to not sound like a youngling. Go on. For I still must find a rope and a good tree today, and the light is fading.”

  Silence. Only the screams of tortured men—ribcages broken open, lungs pickled with salt—interrupted the moment.

  “Very well. I will keep myself short.”

  He paused.

  “Many would say you are the greatest warrior of the western Wood Elves. A servant of the Seelie Court. The man I took this from—” he waved the glimmering pearl “—predicted the fall of the Holy Land ten years in advance. He told me of forces acting within the System. An ancient corruption, from before it came to this world.”

  He inhaled slowly.

  “There’s an opportunity. I’ve prepared for it—an Elven state where we rule our fate. No fey courts. No human threats. Citadels and walls in the Holy Land—safety at last.”

  He pointed at her.

  “And you, Irelia, shall be my Seishin. My Hand of the Empire. I will not take no for an answer.”

  She laughed. Out loud. Unapologetically. “Absurd.”

  He looked at her. And his eyes were filled with a dark rage—a darkness that cut deeper than the soul.

  “What else do you have to live for, Huntress? You may not want your life. But I saved yours.” He made a wide gesture. “I saved what I could of your tribe. Your life belongs to me. And I will have you pay off your life-debt by living. By hunting.”

  His canine teeth shone in the light.

  And she chuckled again, showing her sharp, carnivorous teeth as well. “Very well, son of the Emperor. If you claim the ancient rites, I’ll play along. Better tinder to your delusions than ashes in this well.”

  The man laughed.

  “Good. Now rise, take a weapon from the quartermaster. A human village waits nearby.”

  Thanks for reading — let me know in the comments what you thought about the chapter!

  Upload Schedule: Mon–Fri at 4:47 PM EST / 10:47 PM CET

  Want more? Join my Patreon for up to 30 extra chapters (6 weeks ahead):