2

  First Meeting

  Knight Commander Elsa Dein rode steadily through the forest of Duskveil with a squadron of thirty hardened soldiers at her back, twenty-five bronze-ranked knights and five of silver rank. With such numbers, they could face any threat hiding within the forest. And with her, the only gold-ranked among them, their victory was as certain as the day was sure.

  The soldiers knew it too, there was an ease as they marched behind her, which there wouldn’t be on a normal occasion. The forest was ancient, vast, and filled with all kinds of danger. Most of it was still uncharted, and many creatures resided inside, from goblins and trolls to intelligent, man-hunting beasts like orcs, wyverns, and harpies.

  The forest often proved too much for a lot of adventurers and lower ranked knights, just returning alive and unscathed would be considered an incredible feat. Only seasoned veterans and higher ranked knights could truly hold their own against the monstrosities and horrors lurking within, and knights like Elsa could do much more than hold their own.

  Still, even she did not enjoy assignments inside the forest.

  There was just too much unpredictability and risk.

  That was why it bothered her still that a company of bronze-ranked knights had been assigned on a mission inside the forest. Granted, it was not combat, but to locate and report back the nest of a goblin horde that had raided a nearby village two nights ago. Still, it was common sense to know it would be too much for them to handle. Anyone would know that.

  Was it simply incompetence from the King’s Hand or malice?

  Elsa knew of the man’s cruelty, but she couldn’t imagine how it would serve him to send a company of bronze-ranked knights to their deaths… and they were likely dead.

  Their last report was two days ago, before they ventured into the forest.

  Elsa had been assigned to find out what happened to the company, but she knew it was a pointless endeavor. The fifteen men in the company were almost certainly dead. She doubted there would even be corpses left to find. That was how brutal the forest was.

  A frown twisted her beautiful face. She couldn’t bring back dead men, but she could at least find out why they were given an assignment that could be described as suicide, and help them get justice if necessary. Elsa had no doubt that it would be difficult, perhaps even impossible as the King’s Hand was involved. Still, the matter was worth looking into.

  With a deep breath, she shifted her mind away from the thought.

  For now though, she would just try to find the corpses—if they had not already been consumed by slimes or any of the other beasts in the forest—and complete the assignment of locating and destroying the goblin’s nest. That was the only priority right now.

  “Commander,” a soldier called, steering his horse to ride beside her.

  Elsa turned to the soldier, Elliot Reinhard, her second in command. He had been by her side since their training days, witnessed her rise from an unskilled cadet to the youngest commander in their kingdom’s history. She trusted him as much as she could trust anyone, which was admittedly not a lot. She did not trust easily, and this was widely known.

  Only her adopted father had earned that full and unwavering trust.

  “What is it, Elliot?” she asked sharply. “Trouble?”

  He sniffed his nose before looking down the trail. “I smell blood. Lots.”

  Elsa’s face grew fierce and she darted her gaze toward where Elliot looked. She did not doubt his nose, it had saved them from ambushes and traps on many occasions.

  He was a Demi-human, and his appearance easily gave away his wolf ancestry. He had long, fluffy ears that grew out of his thick brown hair, fangs at the edge of his lips, and a bushy tail below his lower back. Other than that, he looked like any other human.

  Their kind was said to have a keen sense of smell, but his abilities were unique, even among his kind. He could see at a greater distance, discern the subtlest poison with a smell, and his reflexes were sharper than the other Demi-human she’d trained. He had even once claimed to be able to taste the mana in the air, but she didn’t know whether to believe it.

  “Everyone, be on your guard!” Elsa ordered.

  The sound of blades drawing from their sheaths echoed through the forest. Elsa did not bother to draw her own, it was not yet needed. But she dismounted from her horse, and the silver-ranks followed, lest they injured their steeds when the fighting began.

  Their power was destructive, yet it paled compared to hers…

  Elsa drew her mount by hand as they continued down a beaten trail. The forest held a tense silence, but her armor shattered it, clinking with every step. There was a time it had been too heavy for her, now she barely even felt its weight. Her gauntleted hand rested on the hilt of one of her twin longswords, Myra, ready to be drawn at any moment.

  “We’re close,” Elliot said, walking by her side with sword drawn.

  They slowly pushed past the surrounding verdure and stumbled onto a clearing, and the moment they did, the smell hit her like a wall. It was a suffocating mix of rot and iron, so thick it clung to the back of her throat. But she had long learned to endure it.

  Elliot moved ahead of her, flaring his nostrils before his face twisted in disgust and sudden panic. He slapped one hand over his nose, his tail stiffened, and his ears flattened over his head. “Blood… and something else. I don’t… I’ve never smelled anything like it.”

  Elsa said nothing, her eyes falling on the scene before them.

  It was a graveyard.

  The bodies of the bronze-ranked knights lay scattered across the field like discarded dolls. Some were still in their armor, others torn open where teeth, claws, and crude blades had split them apart. Limbs were missing, and faces were just gone. A few bodies had been stripped of armor and weapons, very clearly the handiwork of goblins.

  Their small green body littered the clearing as well, several dozens of them, riddled with sword wounds and burned beyond recognition in places, the smell of burnt flesh still heavy in the air. Some had been impaled by their own weapons, others cleaved in two.

  “They fought bravely,” one of the silver-ranked knights murmured.

  “They did,” Elsa said, stepping forward. The ground was dark, soaked through with blood that had long since dried. “Spread out, search for missing and wounded.”

  “At once, Commander,” several voices said in unison.

  Elsa knelt beside one of the fallen knights, a young boy, he couldn’t have been much older than she was. So much life left to live, instead his face lay pale, disfigured, and kissed with death. She inhaled a breath and closed the boy’s eyes, offering a silent prayer.

  “They must have fought the whole horde,” Elsa muttered underneath her breath as she rose to her feet. “They were probably lured here and ambushed. It’s the goblin way.”

  “Should we search for the nest, Commander?” A knight asked.

  Elsa shook her head. “Not yet, let us recover all the dead first,” she responded before turning to her oldest companions. “What did you smell that made you so afraid, Elliot?”

  “I don’t know… but it smelled wrong, like it didn’t belong here.”

  She looked around the clearing, then lifted her gaze to the trees, searching for deeper claw marks, odd footprints, or broken branches, but she found nothing. Her brows tightened in thought. There were no indications that anything other goblins had been here.

  Still, the forest was unpredictable. You couldn’t be too careful.

  Just then, a knight of bronze rank came running back despite the order she had given to search for the wounded and missing. Either he’d discovered just that, or something else had occurred. Her grip on her sword tightened and she steeled herself with a quiet breath.

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  “Commander,” the woman said, breathless. “You need to see this.”

  “What is it?” Elsa asked urgently. “What did you find?”

  The soldier shook her head. “It’s a person, but not one of our own.”

  Elsa did not ask questions. Immediately, she and the remaining knights followed the woman as she led them deeper into the forest. She still did not draw her sword, but her grip on Myra’s hilt was like stone as her gaze scoured the surrounding greenery.

  “There,” the soldier pointed to a body lying on the ground.

  The first sign that something was wrong was when Elliot suddenly stopped dead in his track and fell to his knees, throwing up all the contents of his stomach, his eyes so wide with fear in a way she had never seen before. The second sign was that the body was not a body, he was alive, she could see the rise and fall of his chest from where she stood.

  “Elliot, are you okay?” Elsa asked as she glanced down at the man.

  He sucked in ragged breaths, shaking his head violently. “The smell… it’s stronger here,” he stuttered, forcing the words out. “We… we should leave here at once.”

  Elsa didn’t respond, she just looked toward the unconscious form on the ground. He looked human from where she stood staring, but something was not quite right. She didn’t know how long he’d been lying unconscious like that, but no human could possibly survive being so defenseless in the open, not even for an hour, not in a forest this perilous.

  There were so many questions racing through her mind.

  What was he? Was he the cause of Elliot’s panic? How long had he been here? What was the strange clothes he was wearing? Why was it covered in blood? Why was he alive?

  But most importantly, was he a threat?

  So far, no one had made a toward the unconscious form. They were all still keeping their distance, there was just too many unknowns to take any chances or risks.

  “Was he like this when you found him?” Elsa asked the knight.

  She nodded. “Yes, we just found him unconscious.”

  Elsa stood still for a moment, considering, then she drew her sword, the sharp sound echoing through the forest and causing the air itself to shiver with a sudden heat.

  Very slowly, she started toward the boy, her steps leaving a trail of ashes and smoke as undergrowth and roots burned beneath her plated boots. She didn’t know what the boy was, but if anything could make Elliot react like that then it certainly couldn’t be good. She had seen the man stand unfazed against enemies he stood no chance against, she had seen him charge toward an horde of orcs with nothing but his fists and a battle cry, she had seen him attempt a solo ascension of the Tower of Heaven and survive.

  He might not be as strong as she was, but among the silver-ranked knights, he was one of the elite. Yet, here he was, unable to even stand before an unconscious boy.

  “What do you want to do with him, Commander?” a voice asked.

  Elsa didn’t bother turning back to give a response, her focus was completely on the strange boy in front of her. She didn’t know whether he was a threat to them, but she wasn’t taking any chances as she approached him. There have been several strange tales of demon-possessed men running amok in the far North, maybe he was one of them.

  If so, could they just let him be? Was it not wiser to dispose of him now?

  But what if he was innocent?

  All these, she considered as she reached him, and with the first good look at his face, she saw how young he was, eighteen or so, around her age. His dark hair was matted with blood, stuck to his forehead and neck, but there was no wound anywhere on him. His lashes were long, too long for a boy, and his nose sat straight. His face was finely shaped in a way that might’ve looked very handsome if not for the grime. Even she could admit that.

  But it didn’t help her decide what to do with him.

  Was he a threat? Or maybe he could explain everything if given a chance?

  Elsa inhaled a deep breath and sheathed her sword, then turned toward the gathered knights watching. “We’ll take him with us back to the city. If he’s someone in need of help, then we can’t leave him here, and we also can’t kill him simply because we don’t know or understand what’s happening,” she reasoned. “We’ll take security measures, but hopefully it won’t be needed after he wakes and explains everything to us.”

  “Elsa—” Elliot started to protest.

  “It’s my decision,” she said. “I understand he might be dangerous, but he might also be an innocent. I don’t want to pass rash judgment. This is my decision, and it’s final,”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  ***

  Slowly, Adam came to consciousness, opening his eyes with a deep groan. A warm, dank smell hit him first, like stale water and old stone. His gaze quickly focused, and he realized he was in a dark room. No, not a room, he was… in a cell? The long iron bars that stood in front of him immediately made it clear. On instinct, Adam tried to push himself up, but he found he was unable to use his hands. They were shackled in front of him.

  What the fuck was happening now? Wh—

  Like a bolt of lightning, the memories came rushing back to him. He had woken up in a forest, then he heard the sounds, saw men in armor fighting these strange creatures.

  Goblins…they were real… they had shot arrows at him.

  His first instinct was check himself for any injuries, but once again he was reminded that he his hands were bound as the metal chain clattered when he tried to move them. With immense effort, he managed to roll over on the ground and pushed himself into a sitting upright. Then, he glanced down at his body and fear clenched at his heart. His hoodie was completely ruined, the gray discolored, stained red with blood… his blood.

  It was not a dream then. Everything that happened was real, from waking up in that forest, the armored men with swords, the goblins, the fighting and death.

  He had also been caught in the battle and was wounded. No, he had been killed. He remembered the panic as he tried to run, and the pain as the goblins hacked him to death.

  First the truck accident, then the goblins had killed him…

  He had died twice, there was no mistaking or denying it anymore. He had died. The evidence was right on his body. But somehow he was alive again.

  What was happening to him? Where was he? In another world?

  Adam’s breathing quickened and his heart pounded in fear as a stream of confusion washed over him. There was no breathing exercise that could help now, not when the truth stared him in the face. He had died, actually died, it was not an easy thing to accept.

  “Glad to see you’re awake,” a soft female voice said suddenly.

  Adam’s gaze darted toward the voice and he saw a woman standing behind the iron bars, her gaze fixed on him. She wore a full plate of armor, not bronze like the ones he had seen before, but gold, catching the light of the candles that hung along the walls, and shaped with precision to fit her slender build. The breastplate on her chest was curved and engraved with faint patterns that looked like a tree, and around her waist, a belt of dark leather held two swords and secured the lower plates of her armor that hugged her long legs.

  His eyes lifted toward the woman’s face. Her hair was a fiery red color he had never seen before in his life, loose and heavy, falling around her shoulders and down her back in long waves. Against the metal that covered her, her face stood out. She had pale skin, brows the same color of her hair, thin straight nose, and full lips. Her features were soft, delicate, and her deep emerald eyes held a quiet confidence, seeming to pierce into his soul.

  Even the dire circumstance could not stop Adam from being taken by the woman’s stunning look. She was insanely beautiful, it bewildered his mind how it was possible.

  “Who… who are you?” Adam asked slowly, his voice quiet.

  Her armor creaked as she stepped closer to the iron bars. “My name is Elsa Dein. I found you unconscious in the forest. What’s your name?”

  “My name is Adam… Adam Wells.”

  The woman nodded. “Good, you’re able to remember. I have a few questions I want to ask you, Adam, and I hope you can help me with them.” she said.

  Adam was immediately on his guard. The woman had claimed to find him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to help. He knew nothing about where he was, whether the people in armor were good or evil. Granted, they had been fighting those goblins, and the creatures definitely seemed evil, but that didn’t mean they would help him, and waking up in prison certainly didn’t warm him up to them. For all he knew, he was about to be executed.

  And what questions could she possibly have? He had seen a few of the bronze men die, was that the problem? Or was the forest restricted and he’d somehow trespassed?

  He frowned, but nodded for her to proceed with the questions.

  “Can you tell me what you were doing in the forest all alone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, I just woke up from there,” he answered.

  “Just woke up there?” She arched a brow.

  Adam considered whether to tell her everything. He didn’t know where he was, but he was certain now that it was no longer the world he knew. Maybe telling her the truth of how he’d gotten here might lead him to some answers, or it might make him sound crazy, and he could only hazard a guess how they dealt with crazy people here.

  Still, he was out of ideas. He needed help.

  “Yeah. I was… somewhere else, and then suddenly I woke up in the forest.”

  She frowned, at least taking him seriously. “Did you step on a teleportation circle?”

  Teleportation circle? Seeing as they still used swords and bows, he knew she wasn’t talking about some futuristic device. It was likely magic, they had magic here. That would explain so many things. But still magic? Shit. It was hard to wrap his head around.

  What the hell had he stumbled upon…

  “I don’t know… I can’t remember. I’m from a place called Seattle, in America. Do you know how I can get back?” Adam asked, hoping as hard as he’d ever hoped.

  Her head tilted in confusion. “America? Se…attle” she repeated slowly. “I’ve never heard those kingdoms before, and using teleportation circles to travel to a precise location is impossible. Humans do not have the knowledge for such divine magic. I can’t help you.”

  Fuck… He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy.

  “I have some other questions for you, Adam,” she said calmly, leveling her gaze on him with those keen emerald eyes. “Do you know how long you were in the forest? And why you were unconscious? From all that blood, I assume you were attacked?”

  Adam hesitated. For some reason, telling her that he might have died and resurrected didn’t seem like a wise thing to do. He didn’t know what kind of religion existed here, but there was a chance that saying that could be some kind of heresy. He thought it best to keep quiet about that for now, and also the fact that he might be from another world entirely. He had heard a lot of conspiracies about what happened to aliens that landed on Earth.

  Let her continue to believe America was another kingdom.

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t know how long I was in there, but when I first woke up I tried to look for a way out… then I was attacked. I didn’t see what happened.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “How did you survive?”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

  “I see,” she said, then turned toward the corner where a wooden table rested. Setting down the bag he’d only just noticed she was carrying, she reached inside and pulled out a small black orb. Then she turned back to him, holding it out. “Place your hand over this.”

  His brows drew together. “Why?” he asked warily.

  “So we can see if you possess any latent powers you’re unaware of,” she said. “It is called a Diviner. They’re not usually this small, but this should work just fine.”

  Skeptical, Adam leaned forward. He was curious to know himself, but also worried she might be lying. But there was nothing he could do about it, he just had to trust that he wouldn’t burn alive the moment his fingers touched it.

  As he drew close, she slipped the orb through the bars to make it easier for him. His palm came to rest on the orb, lightly at first, then he settled comfortably. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it felt normal, like warm metal.

  He held his breath, but a moment passed and nothing happened.

  The woman met his gaze, her surprise evident. “You don’t have any magic.”