NOVPUB"Hold!" she roared. "Hold for the storm-bearer!"
Those words lashed the line together stronger than any rope. The elves' formation hardened, and their war-chant rose in cracked but defiant harmony—a thread of song cutting through the stench of rot. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝔭𝔲𝔟.𝖈𝖔𝔪
Draven circled the guardian's flank, twin blades carving precise sigils of dismemberment. Each strike parted bark to reveal pulsing lines of corruption; each line died in a hiss of black vapor. He moved like chess pieces sliding across a lethal board—foreseeing, countering, never overextending. Sparks from Sylvanna's arrows glinted off his steel, painting momentary constellations that winked out as fast as they formed.
Yet Raëdrithar sagged, forelimbs trembling beneath his weight. Sylvanna felt the echo—lungs burning, limbs heavy. She could not share strength through the bond, only will, and so she poured her will into the rune on her breast. Blue pushed back the red until ember flickered to cinders. Clarity sharpened the world: every drop of sap, every fracture in the pylon's bark, every shadow of motion behind the roots.
Then she saw it—an aperture near the pylon's base, briefly exposed as the roots shifted in their death-throes. A ragged crescent, just wide enough for a single arrow. The opening pulsed in perfect rhythm with the guardian's wheezing breaths.
"Vanguard, maintain the line!" Draven's order cracked overhead. "Sylvanna, take the shot!"
Noise fell away. Even Virellionn's whisper faded, a candle snuffed in sudden wind. There was only the target, steady as a heartbeat, and the draw of nock to cheek. Static spidered across the arrowhead, dancing up the shaft into fletching. The lightning circled once, twice, then coiled—waiting.
She exhaled.
"Burn," she whispered, not to the pylon, but to every doubt still clinging to her skin.
Fingers released. The arrow streaked from the bow like a sliver of daybreak. It arrowed through the aperture, vanished into the pylon's core. For half a breath silence reigned, broken only by the hiss of leaking sap.
Then thunder cracked the chamber's spine.
The pylon exploded outward, bark shards shredding the vines that shielded it. Amber light geysered into the cavern as though the heart of the rot had burst—a storm of sparks that painted every face in flickering gold.
The arrow struck. A crack of thunder split the air. The pylon shattered, amber light exploding in a storm of sparks.
Sylvanna felt the blast first as heat, then as pressure—an invisible fist slamming her chest. Her bow jerked in her grip; the string sang a last trembling note before falling slack. For an instant the entire cavern glowed gold, as though someone had overturned a celestial brazier and let molten dawn spill everywhere. Every root, every shard of broken bark, every ragged breath hanging in the air glittered with flecks of crackling light. It was beautiful and horrifying in equal measure, like watching stars die at arm's length.
The corrupted guardian shrieked. The sound wasn't a roar so much as a splitting of reality—a keening that rose from deep in its chest and fractured in mid-air. Its twisted ribs gaped wide, sap rivers pulsing bright then sputtering. The amber channels running through its body lost their malignant glow, dimming to the dull color of spent embers. Molten sap erupted from ruptured arteries, splattering the stone with sizzling gouts that steamed where they landed. One torrent hit a vine-snared shield; the metal hissed, bubbled, and caved inward as though chewed by acid.
Raëdrithar pounced, claws plowing deep furrows into what remained of the guardian's flank. Lightning arced along his limbs, no longer diffused by corruption, now slicing clean through rotten bark. He dragged the monstrosity downward. The guardian's legs, robbed of necrotic power, crumbled like wet charcoal. It toppled—first to its knees, then forward—impact shaking the cavern hard enough to dislodge dust from the ceiling. Its massive head struck stone with a wet crack, split, and finally collapsed into a heap of steaming debris.
Silence did not come at once. The death throes produced a lingering hiss, like wind escaping a cracked bellows, before the cavern finally settled into stillness broken only by the distant roar of the waterfall above.
Raëdrithar tipped back his head and howled, a sound of triumph but edged with exhaustion. The echo circled the chamber, bouncing off stone and root before fading into a soft rumble. He lowered his head next, shoulders sagging, sparks dimming to faint glimmers that winked out one by one.
Sylvanna's knees buckled. She half-slid, half-stumbled until her spine hit a curving root. Smoke wisped from her gloves and the bow still clutched in her palm; the wood was warm, almost too hot to hold. She forced her grip to loosen and set it gently beside her thigh. When she flexed her fingers, tiny blue sparks danced across her knuckles, but no ember-red followed. The corrupted hue had receded, leaving only the familiar blue glow of controlled storm.
Her lungs drew a shaky breath—air flavored with char, iron, and the sweet tang of scorched sap. Muscles trembled from mana overload; her heartbeat was a drum out of rhythm. She let her head fall back against the root, eyelids fluttering closed while prickles of static crawled beneath her skin.
For a short, fragile moment nothing moved. Vaelira's Vanguard stood in a loose semicircle, shields still interlocked though no enemy remained. A hush rolled through their ranks like sunrise touching a battlefield: relief, disbelief, a tentative wonder that they were still breathing. One elf exhaled a shuddering laugh, more sob than mirth, and wiped sap splatter off his cheek with a trembling hand. Another lowered her spear, the point clinking against stone before slipping from numbed fingers.
Footsteps—measured, deliberate—echoed through the cavern. Draven paced from pylon to pylon, twin blades now sheathed, his gaze raking each shattered shard with dispassionate care. The reflections of sparks flickered across his pale eyes, but the rest of his face was carved marble—aloof, distant, entirely unawed. Every couple of strides he paused, knelt, and brushed gloved fingertips over a fragment of blackened wood, as though verifying residue against some internal ledger.
"Vanguard, confirm status. Casualties?" His tone carried neither celebration nor fatigue—only the crisp timbre of ongoing assessment. The words sliced the hush, snapping soldiers back to purpose.
Vaelira lowered her helm, green-black braid clinking with rings as she turned. "Minimal," she called across the still-smoldering field. "Three wounded. All conscious. Shields held." She added the last with a trace of pride, as though reminding doubt itself that elves did not break so easily.
Draven inclined his head, acknowledging data received. "Good. The sanctum's corruption is severed, but residual taint lingers. We cleanse until the root-grid stabilizes. Then we burn."
No one argued burning; the cavern already stank of it. A few Vanguard elves gathered torches from packs, their movements automatic though fingers shook. One young guard—hardly older than seventy winters—approached a fallen root, hesitated when blue sparks popped between the fibers, then steadied himself and touched flame to bark. Smoke curled up in lazy, grey ribbons.
Sylvanna opened her eyes at a sudden drag inside her chest: Raëdrithar's pulse faltered down their shared bond. The guardian beast limped toward her on trembling legs, each step leaving drizzle of pale sparks that died as soon as they touched stone. He stopped an arm's length away, lowered that massive head until warm breath stirred loose wisps of her hair. The static of his muzzle brushed her cheek—soft, reassuring. She pressed her palm to his jaw, felt the low hum of his exhaustion and gave back a pulse of quiet gratitude.
"I'm here," she whispered. It wasn't much, but the words steadied both their heartbeats.
Vaelira approached next, spear butt thumping softly. Her armor bore black scorch marks where sap had splattered; one plate over her ribs smoldered faintly. She didn't appear to notice. Instead, she extended a hand. "You did it." Voice steady, though a fracture of awe slipped past her practiced poise.
Sylvanna forced her muscles to obey, sliding her fingers into the princess's gauntleted grip. Vaelira hauled her up with surprising strength for someone so slender, then braced her until balance returned.
"Lightning aside, you bleed mortal," Vaelira said quietly. "Let the healers look at your shoulder."
Sylvanna glanced down. Sap-soaked leather had split along her upper arm during her earlier slide; crimson seeped through the tear in slow beads. Weird—she hadn't felt it until now. Adrenaline masked pain until triumph turned it loose.
"I'm fine." But the protest lacked conviction. Her head swam, and her knees felt like wet clay.
Raëdrithar's muzzle nudged her, not gently, urging compliance. She rolled her eyes and managed a shaky smile. "All right, all right."
Draven drifted closer, boots crunching over brittle shards. He stopped a pace away, gaze unfathomable. His hands were already clean, no soot on the pale leather. "Report directly to the council," he said, tone as brisk as a ledger note. "They need verification from the operative, not from metrics alone."
Operative. The term slipped like ice into a wound. Still, she nodded. "Understood."
Draven's eyes flicked to her rune, now a steady azure star. Something unreadable passed through his expression—an equation confirming itself, perhaps—then vanished. He turned away, calling two scouts to inventory salvageable bark and mark areas for additional burning. He resumed pacing, methodical as a metronome.
Sylvanna watched his back for a moment—how the lamplight skated across runic thread in his cloak, how his shoulders remained squared despite the hours-long fight. Cold efficiency, steel mind; she wondered if he felt triumph at all, or if victory was simply another entry under "resources retained."
A healer arrived with a small satchel, the half-elf woman's hands shaking yet determined. She cleaned Sylvanna's wound with cool salve that smelled of pine and vinegar. When lightning crackled across Sylvanna's skin—instinctive flicker at the sting—the healer flinched but did not retreat. "Sorry," Sylvanna murmured, to which the healer only nodded, eyes wide. Fear or reverence, hard to tell.
Once bandaged, Sylvanna let Raëdrithar guide her toward the cavern mouth where the tunnel wound upward. As they climbed, every footstep echoed in her bones. Somewhere below, torches whooshed as elves set more corrupted roots alight. The crackle of flame followed them like a hungry beast.
