The Elves refused to take their defeat lying down. Once we repelled their invasion and sent then away from Branlyn, it didn’t take long before we heard rumors of another attempt in the works. Only this time, the elves were colluding with the other races. All in hopes of forging an alliance to take mankind down. If they got their way, they would become our masters. Drastic action had to be taken. Especially after confirming that the other Realms were considering allying with the Elves against us.

  -Excerpt from “Man and Elves: History of the Perpetual Conflict”

  Aria had never felt so alone.

  Her blood relation to her mother had been discovered by that forsaken ashborn, Arawn. As a result, he’d ordered them separated. The slavers then transported Aria to the Second Circle of Ignis.

  From what she’d been told, Ignis was separated into three circles. With a massive, circular wall dividing each one.

  The Third Circle was the first among them, and encompassed most of the city. Here was where the lower class citizens lived. From what Aria knew, residents of the Third essentially lived in poverty. At least, in comparison to the other two circles.

  Their lives were still infinitely better than those of slaves like her, though.

  The Second Circle was where the middle class lived. There were two main groups of people who lived here. One were families or simply individuals who used to live in the immaculate First Circle, but were demoted for reasons she couldn’t care enough to remember. The other were people from the Third who managed to prove they had enough talent in some area or another.

  It was in the Second Circle where the humes became wealthy enough to buy slaves of their own, or so Aria had heard.

  The First Circle was where the upper class lived. It comprised of the nobility and elites of the Dominion. Aria hated them most of all. She’d occasionally seen some nobles come outside Ignis looking to buy some slaves.

  The slaves just outside of Ignis, where Aria had been with her mother, all belonged to the Dominion, and were officially owned by Athanasius Durai. However, with enough money, humes could buy their own slaves from him. Again, one didn’t typically become wealthy enough to actually afford one unless they lived in the Second Circle or above.

  And the Second was where Aria had been sent.

  She’d been forcibly cleaned up by her slavers. An extremely shameful moment for Aria, as they had forcibly torn off her dirty and hole riddled rags to do so.

  Elves didn’t like to show off skin, and she’d had that belief instilled in her by her mother. The rags they’d been all but forced to wear hadn’t covered much, particularly for the adults. No doubt that had been done on purpose. It was a yet another way for the Dominion to humiliate and shame them.

  After she was forcibly cleaned, a bunch of ashborn in white coats had come to examine every part of her. Every. Single. Part of her. Aria had nearly thrown up as the slavers and humes studied her naked body in their invasive inspection, as if she were a prized animal on display. She’d never felt so defiled before.

  Thankfully, none of them so much as tried forcing themselves onto her as they cleaned and examined her.

  A few times, however, she’d noticed, to her terror, some of them eyeing her in a nauseating way. They’d been warned not to do anything rash by their superiors. Of course, this wasn’t out of the kindness of their hearts, as humes didn’t possess any shred of virtue or dignity in them. Rather, this was so that Aria could be sold to the highest bidder. If she was harmed or used in some way, that meant the Dominion wouldn’t be able to sell her for as much as they would if she were in “pristine condition.”

  And such an act would be seen as stealing from the Dominion, and by extension Athanasius himself. Even the slavers weren’t so barbaric as to risk wronging their false god in such a way.

  After the horribly invasive cleaning and inspection, she’d been given clothes to change into, and was then taken to an auction.

  It broke her heart to see her fellow slaves, chained up and shackled as she was, with hollow, hopeless looks in their eyes as they waited to be sold and given to their new masters.

  Each one sold off only further inflamed the hatred in her heart. Before she knew it, it was her turn to be auctioned off.

  The auctioneer called out her age, health, and where she’d been working last before starting the bidding.

  She didn’t know the value of the Dominion’s money, as that wasn’t really useful for a slave to know. However, she did note her bidding went on a bit longer than it had for the others.

  That made her uneasy.

  Eventually, Aria had been purchased by what seemed to be a minor noble who’d been demoted from the First Circle. The wretched ashborn, to her surprise, was a woman. She seemed to be nearing middle age, and had a few wrinkles on her skin. Her mud colored irises seemed to twinkle as her eyes wandered over her. Her gaze had made Aria involuntarily shiver.

  After being sold, the slavers handed her off to the hume that was to be her new master, and her accompanying guard took hold of Aria’s shackles. She’d then been dragged off to the hume noble’s home. In the carriage she rode in, the guard had informed her of her duties as her master’s newest slave.

  “I’m only going to explain this once, so you better make sure you listen knife ears,” the guard snapped, “as Madam Adele’s slave, you are her property now. You will be expected to perform your duties to perfection. Such duties include but are not limited to cleaning Madam Adele’s estate, cooking, or even being temporarily rented out to help for some event or something. Know that any failure or defiance on your part will result in SEVERE punishment. Perhaps you’d even be returned and sold back to the Dominion, upon which you will return to the grueling labor you had worked before until you die. Do I make myself clear, sap drinker?!”

  Aria had bit her tongue to prevent herself from saying something that would get her in trouble, and nodded, “Yes, sir.”

  When she finally arrived at the hume’s home, she’d found that the noble woman owned some other slaves, all elves of course.

  An entire month had gone by after that.

  Thankfully, nothing had been done to her in that time.

  If she were to be honest, her living conditions were better now than they had been before. Granted, the slave quarters where they were kept was still cramped and small. It just wasn’t to the same absurd extent as they had been outside of Ignis.

  Aria was also given meals that, while still far from great quality, weren’t the slop she’d been fed before. She’d nearly cried when tasting a small piece of stale bread for the first time in her life. Even old and hard, that bread had been heaven compared to the slop she’d known before.

  She’d also been given clothes that, while extremely plain and worn, were far better than the hole riddled rags she had prior.

  Aria found that they were allowed to bathe, something that she’d never been able to do before. She’d been expecting the forced cleaning from before to be the only time she’d ever be able to be clean.

  Granted, the only chance she had to bathe was a mandatory bath that all the slaves had to take together, and it wasn’t like they were given much time or water to clean with. But it was still better than what she’d had before.

  Even the work Aria had to do here was far less strenuous and torturous than it had been before, as all she mostly did was clean. No doubt some of her kin would be tempted to kill to be given such luxuries. Compared to her conditions outside of Ignis, the difference was like heaven and earth.

  She’d trade it all to be with her mother again.

  This all went through her mind as she awoke in her quarters, a month after being separated from Anila.

  Her fellow slaves here were kind enough, and had been welcoming and eager to teach her how to do what was expected of them. They were all elves like her, which wasn’t surprising since the vast majority of slaves consisted of elves. However, unlike with her people outside of Ignis, she felt a strange distance from these.

  She’d first realized it when she noticed these elves only spoke in Durainese, not Elvish. Even in private. When Aria tried to speak to them in their ancestral tongue, some looked like they didn’t understand her, and merely blinked with confusion. The ones who did understand her had paled and told her not to speak Elvish, and to only speak in the tongue of the ashborn.

  Speaking the vile language of the humes left a bitter taste in her mouth every time she used it, but she bore with it for now.

  That had been the first sign, but it still took her a while to realize what exactly the feeling was. She’d realized it the first time she’d seen her new “owner” snap at one of them.

  “You useless knife ears!” Adele had screeched as she backhanded an elf slave so hard she fell to the ground, “you call this clean?! Do you?! I ordered you to make this area spotless! And what do I find? A spec of dust! Inexcusable!”

  The vile hume glowered at Aria and the others present, “Don’t think the rest of you tree huggers are free of blame! Where one of you slacks, ALL will bear the punishment! Perhaps I should sell a few of you back to the Dominion. I’d make a nice return if I did! Oh, how tempting… Don’t make it more so by not doing your Athanasius forsaken jobs properly!”

  Aria had watched with disbelief as her people paled at the threat. They looked genuinely terrified at the prospect of being sold and sent back to the outside.

  “Now,” Adele continued, “I’m a kind and generous woman. If you lot do your jobs as you’re supposed to, then I won’t see the need to get rid of you. I’ll continue to keep you under my care.”

  “Thank you for you benevolence Mistress Adele!” some of the elves present cried out, with some even groveling at her feet.

  It was a disgusting sight in Aria’s eyes. The terror and subservience at which her kin regarded the vile ashborn was on a level that she’d never before seen from her fellow elves. To see some of them cast away their elven pride in such a shameful manner… it sickened her.

  And it especially flared the rage within her when she had seen the smug look on Adele’s face as she gleefully savored the sense of superiority she held over them.

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  After the fact, Aria confronted one of them over their shameful behavior, and to her shock, that elf had actually gotten angrily defensive about the matter.

  “What do you expect us to do, child?!” that elf had snapped at her, “do you expect us fight? To defy the humans? Stop being selfish and think of the rest of us!”

  As the elf had stormed off, Aria realized, for the first time, that she had wanted to hit him. One of her own people.

  It was also in that moment that she’d realized what exactly that distance she’d felt from them was. The slaves here had given up and become completely subservient. The ones outside of Ignis had quite literally nothing more to lose besides their lives. The ones here had tasted some comforts, as paltry as they were, and were terrified of losing them.

  That terror was what made them so much more subservient than the ones outside of Ignis.

  It made sense in a cruel, disgusting sort of way.

  Aria hated it.

  She hated it more each day that passed, even now, as she mopped the floors of the large home of her new owner.

  Adele had gone out to attend some matter Aria couldn’t care less for, and had ordered them to go about their usual tasks.

  She wasn’t the only one mopping, as she was aided by one other slave.

  She’d been lost in her thoughts when the other slave, an elf woman, suddenly spoke, “I know you’re disappointed with us.”

  Aria jumped a little at being addressed out of nowhere.

  “Pardon?”

  “I know you’re disappointed with us,” the elf woman, Sana, repeated, “we all know it.”

  Aria frowned slightly as she remained quiet and continued to work.

  “I don’t understand why, though,” Sana continued, “we all know you came from outside of Ignis. We figured you, more than any of us, would be terrified about the prospect of being sent back.”

  Aria snorted, “Don’t lump me in with the rest of you.”

  Sana sighed, “Do you think you’re better than us? Is that it?”

  “Honestly?” Aria unceremoniously dropped her mop to the ground, eliciting a flinch from Sana, “yes, I do! I can see it in you all, you know. That hollow, pitiful, look of defeat. The way you all grovel before that hume sickens me! What happened to your elven pride?!”

  Though anger could be seen in the older elf’s eyes, Aria could also see hints of shame. However, Sana clenched her jaw, and gave her a hard look, “Tell me, child… what good has that pride been for us? In case you, for some Maker forsaken reason, haven’t realized it yet, we’re SLAVES! The Great Fragmentation left us all stranded here, and the Void Sea all but guarantees that nothing about that will change! Help. Is. Not. Coming!”

  Aria, feeling her temper grow hot, stepped right up to the woman, narrowing her eyes as she stated, “Then why don’t you all help yourselves instead if you so firmly believe that.”

  Sana couldn’t keep Aria’s gaze, and looked away, “We’re done talking about this, child…”

  “Good,” Aria said, kicking up the stick of the mop she had been using to her hands, “I tire of your pessimism, Sana.”

  They mopped in silence for the remainder of their task.

  The tension between them was palpable.

  ***

  “I heard you and Sana got into an argument,” Onas, one of the male elf slaves, said to Aria.

  She grunted in response as she set about cleaning the windows of Adele’s estate.

  Onas, who was cleaning the window next to her, gave her a sad smile, “I envy your passion, Aria, I really do. But you must do a better job at hiding it…”

  “Why?” Aria challenged. "So that I eventually give in and become as subservient as the rest of you? Let this hume who calls herself our mistress sell me back to the Dominion. I don’t fear returning to my prior conditions.”

  Onas sighed deeply as he shook his head, “You’ve told us you were separated from your mother. Do you really think that, in the event you were to be returned, they’d put you anywhere near her?”

  Aria remained silent.

  She honestly did hope to be sent back to her prior area. For one, there was the escape that Anila would soon be enacting. Being outside of Ignis would make it far easier for her mother to find her when the time came. Especially given that, if her mother tried to find her now, she’d have to find a way to sneak through two heavily guarded checkpoints. One at the entrance to the Third Circle, and then at the Second.

  But she couldn’t bring that up to her current fellow slaves. Aria honestly doubted they’d keep the secret should one of them be in danger of being punished. She also didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining that only she and her mother would be escaping.

  They might not take kindly to not being able join them. The other possibility was that they’d be angry simply for the fact that their escape would put them all in danger.

  When Onas spoke again, Aria was shaken out of her thoughts, “That isn’t the reason why I tell you to better hide your defiance, child.”

  She had to take a moment to register the elf’s words before she frowned and responded, “Then why? I certainly hope it’s for a better reason than mere cowardice on your part.”

  Onas shook his head, ignoring her jab, “No, it’s to avoid drawing the attention of our mistress any more than you already have.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  What Onas said next sent a chill down her spine, “Certainly you’ve seen the way she looks at you from time to time. Let’s just say that we lost one of us not long before you were bought. She’d been a beautiful elf as well. One day she was called into our mistress’s quarters and… she never came back out.”

  Aria gulped.

  Onas continued, “That is why I advise you to keep your head down, child. If you draw attention by showing defiance, however small that defiance may be, it’ll draw her attention. The one you replaced had been a defiant one as well. I think Adele might have a preference for those sorts…”

  “I s-see…” Aria hated how her voice quivered slightly, “and why was I not informed of this sooner?”

  “The others feared you’d murder mistress Adele in her sleep if we told you too soon. Being from the outside of Ignis, you know that the humans return any violence we inflict upon them a hundred fold.”

  “I won’t,” Aria promised, “there are things I need to do that require I keep a low profile anyway.”

  “I won’t pry into what those things are, child. I just hope they don’t rope the rest of us into it.”

  Aria felt a stab of guilt. Once she and her mother made their escape, Elder Feno and many other slaves planned to start an uprising. Maker only knows how many elves will be killed in retaliation…

  Nonetheless, Aria held her tongue. She hated that the Dominion made her distrust her own people, but from what she’d seen of the slaves of the Second Circle, she doubted they’d understand the importance of the escape attempt as many outside of Ignis did.

  “Thank you. For the warning, I mean,” Aria said, trying not to let her guilt seep into either her expression or her words.

  “It’s the least I can do, child,” Onas smiled.

  They continued cleaning the windows in silence.

  ***

  Later that night, as Aria and the others were getting ready to go to sleep for the night, Sana of all people walked up to her and asked, “Child… who exactly is your mother?”

  Aria frowned, “Why the sudden interest, Sana?”

  “It’s just…” Sana twiddled her thumbs as she seemed unable to bring herself to meet Aria’s eyes, “there’s fire in your eyes, child. A will that has yet to be broken, despite the cruelty of our lives in the Dominion… I noticed it during our spat earlier today, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. You said you were separated from your mother. That meant that, until recently, you two managed to stay together somehow. I’m curious as to who it was that raised you?”

  Aria couldn’t help asking her own question with suspicion, “Are you asking to know who it was that gave me such a strength of will as you perceive it? Or to know which elf foolishly raised their daughter in a way that would inevitably cause trouble for you all?”

  Sana flinched, but she surprisingly held her ground and even managed to meet Aria’s stern gaze, “The former. Your mother must possess an extraordinary will of her own to be able to defy the Dominion. To keep you with her in spite of the efforts the humans undertake to ensure families are separated, and to be able to pass such will onto you… It makes one curious as to who she is.”

  Aria’s expression softened at that. From what she could tell, Sana was sincere, so she answered honestly, “My mother is Anila Tufani.”

  Sana and all the other elves froze upon hearing that name.

  “Anila Tufani…” Sana echoed, “THE Anila Tufani?! She’s still alive?!”

  Aria frowned and looked around at the other elves, “Did you all not know?”

  They shook their heads, and Sana explained, “Unlike on the outside, word travels slowly inside of Ignis. We hardly get the chance to interact with slaves owned by other humans in the Second and First Circles. The only exceptions are when something of significance happens. Like when the new Champion came across some of our fellow slaves not too long ago…”

  Onas spoke up next, “We knew Anila was among the First Generation, of course. It’s been so long since any of us heard anything that we all simply thought she had perished or broken long ago…”

  Aria bristled at that, “My mother would never break!”

  Sana hurriedly gestured for her to keep her voice down. When there was no sounds of Adele approaching their quarters to snap at them for making noise, Sana whispered, “How old are you, child?”

  “Fourteen,” Aria answered.

  “Only fourteen?!” Sana gasped, “Anila must be over six hundred years old! She was among the first to be enslaved, and yet she hasn’t given in or been killed by the Dominion?! She retains enough willpower to instill our elven pride and defiance in her daughter… and that daughter is you…”

  “That’s right,” Aria confirmed.

  She saw it then in their eyes, for the first time in the month she’d been here.

  Hope.

  Perhaps these elves aren’t such a lost cause… Aria felt guilty for having been so quick to judge them.

  “Praise the Maker!” they whispered in gratitude.

  It seemed, even as isolated as the elves were inside of Ignis, the legend of Anila Tufani remained well known.

  “There is so much I wish to ask you,” Sana said, gently taking Aria’s hands into her own, “I’ve heard many stories about Anila, yet I don’t know what is true and what is mere fairy tale to give us hope.”

  Aria gave a genuine smile for the first time in over a month, “I’m afraid my mother isn’t the kind to boast. Nor was she the kind to talk about herself much. But I will tell you what I can…”

  The night passed with Aria telling them about Anila.

  ***

  Just as Onas advised, Aria did her best to keep her head down and be on her best behavior. It seemed to work at first, as she noticed she hadn’t drawn much of Adele’s attention over the last few days.

  However, lately, she began to feel as though she were being watched with increasing frequency. It brought a chill to her when she realized Adele had been the cause. Even when she’d caught her staring in her direction, the woman didn’t avert her gaze.

  The way she looked at her… it made Aria terribly uneasy.

  It was as though she were a piece of precious Ether infused crystal that was being inspected for its worth. Only Adele’s gaze seemed… hungrier… more malicious… It made her feel violated, even though the ashborn hadn’t done anything to her physically.

  Aria was ashamed to say she was growing fearful of the woman. Then anger accompanied that fear. She subtly worked against her collar to make sure that she always had some amount of Ether in her Capacity. Just in case she needed to defend herself. Though that raised another concern.

  If Aria did, in fact, defend herself against Adele, what would happen to Sana, Onas, and the others? Any action taken against the vile humes was inflicted upon the elves tenfold. If she hurt Adele, or even killed her, how many of her own people would suffer for it?

  That made Aria realize just why so many elves, both male and female, who’d been taken by the more perverse slavers for their sick pleasures hadn’t fought back. They’d borne that shame, that defilement, to protect the rest of their people. And sometimes they’d be killed anyway, like that one elf woman who Aria still had nightmares about. The one that had been caught using Ether without permission.

  I hate them… To the void with them all! I’ll make sure they suffer for everything they’ve done to us… Aria swore, her fists clenched so hard her knuckles were white.

  But now was not that time. She could only hope that Adele wouldn’t pull something before she escaped with her mother. If she did, it’d complicate her coming escape...

  Because Aria might not be able to hold back the urge to kill the hume.

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