The Harvest Night

The night was still. Quiet in the way that only truly dangerous moments are, thick with a hush that smothered the sound of insects, rustling trees, and anything natural.

Hanel stepped out into the yard, his boots brushing against dew-slick grass. The air hung heavy with the scent of scorched magic, sharp and bitter. His eyes flicked toward the eastern side of the estate’s stone wall.

It was there that the breach had happened.

A spiderweb of orange light pulsed in slow, dying beats across the broken wall, torn through as if something had carved a path straight through its core. The ripple left by the breach scattered, a dusty haze still billowing, and Hanel’s skin prickled as he approached. Static buzzed along his arms, and the fine hairs rose instinctively.

He inhaled slowly.

Magic.

The temperature dropped further, the kind of chill that crept under the skin and whispered of magic with hostile intent. He reached out, brushing the broken edge of the ward with his senses.

And then...

Shapes stirred beyond the breach. Shadows first. Then outlines.

Four figures. Moving steadily forward.

Hanel shifted his stance. His magic responded without resistance, rippling beneath his skin, golden and coiled. The hum of power surrounded him as easily as breath.

From the side entrance of the manor, bootfalls pounded against stone. Three guards in house colors rushed out, swords gleaming in the moonlight.

Hanel didn’t take his eyes off the approaching figures. “Raise the alarm,” he ordered one of them. “Now.”

The man hesitated only a moment before peeling off into the dark, vanishing around the corner.

The four strangers stopped just before the scorched remnants of the ward.

They were foreigners. That much was immediately clear.

Two of them wore Ralensan military uniforms, pristine and unmistakable. The older man was in his late forties, eyes hard and calculating. A long scar traced down the side of his chin, disappearing into a high collar. His cropped hair was silvered at the temples, and even standing still, he looked like someone trained for war.

The younger figure beside him was a girl, barely twenty, short black hair framing a pale face and wide hazel eyes. She looked bone-tired, her posture too rigid to be natural.

Magic radiated from both of them.

Ralensa doesn’t have sorcerers, Hanel thought grimly. At least, they didn’t used to.

The man stepped forward. “Who are you?” His voice was calm, but laced with command.

As if he had the right to ask such a question, here.

Hanel didn’t answer. Instead, golden sparks flared around his fingers, lighting the air between them with a ready power.

“I’ll be asking the questions,” he said. “What do you want?”

The girl blinked, her expression unfocused for a heartbeat. Then, softly, she said, “There are three sorcerers here, Barkel.”

The older man’s jaw clenched. “That’s not what we were told.”

Hanel narrowed his eyes. Told by who?

The third and fourth figures appeared behind them, stepping through the broken wall as if it weren’t even there. They looked nothing like the others.

Ink-black tattoos curled along their faces, bold lines that framed their eyes and twisted down their necks in elegant, unbroken symbols. The woman was tall and lean, with blonde hair pulled into a tight braid, dressed in dark tunics and worn trousers. Her companion was broader, bearded, his thick curls wild under the moonlight. His eyes, obsidian black, flitted around the yard, never focusing on anything, yet seeing everything.

The woman spoke first, tone clipped, sharp as glass. “Our information is never wrong. The Badania family has one sorcerer. She was employed, as planned.”

The scarred man, Barkel, Hanel guessed, turned toward her with a sidelong glance. “You’re clearly mistaken.”

Her smirk was wicked and thin. She turned to Hanel and tilted her head. “The family has one sorcerer. The little girl hasn’t awakened. And the boy has no magic. That’s it.”

Then she grinned, full of teeth. “It’s not our fault if the weird people of Lunavin hire sorcerers as help and children's minders.”

Her eyes locked onto him.

“Are you the girl's minder?”

Hanel didn’t react to the taunt, but the pieces were clicking too quickly now.

The quiet whispers in the city. Marked children vanishing without a trace, on their way to school, in the alleys behind bakeries, even within their own gardens. Never a direct assault. Never something this bold.

This was a new tactic.

Planned. Coordinated.

And they had ensured Akalis was away.

Which meant this wasn’t the work of four.

It was a network.

His gaze slid past them to the road beyond the estate wall.

A carriage.

Shadowed in the trees. Almost hidden.

But he saw it, and the small figures inside.

Two children. Maybe three. Huddled in the back. One was crying, a soft, heartbreaking wail that reached him through the night like a knife to the gut.

His chest tightened. His breath caught.

This wasn’t a raid.

It was a harvest.

He turned to the guards. “Get the red order. Now.” His voice was low but urgent. “You two, take the children inside. Hide them. Tell them it’s an order from me. No questions.”

The guards hesitated only for a heartbeat before scattering.

Hanel faced the four once more. His magic curled tighter around him, a storm waiting to break.

“They’re after Bilia,” he murmured to himself.

Barkel was watching him.

Then he nodded. “We’re leaving.”

The blonde woman snapped toward him, outraged. “Leaving? We haven’t finished.”

“You want to run from one man?” she spat. “Didn’t know Ralensa bred cowards now, Barkel.”

The girl behind her tugged at her sleeve. “There are two more. Inside.”

The woman snorted. “So? I was told to bring ten children. I’m bringing ten. No payment otherwise.”

Barkel’s eyes burned with contempt. “All you care about is coin. They just called backup. You want to risk nine children for one?”

Hanel tuned them out. His mind raced: Bilia, Ayen, Kade, Galir. Each capable in their own right. But children still. His responsibility.

And the ones in the carriage… who had no one else.

The decision wasn’t hard.

He raised a hand.

A blade of light manifested into being, long and precise, shining in the night like a shard of the sun itself. The hum of his magic reached a sharp crescendo, resonating with every heartbeat in his chest.

The group stilled.

The blonde woman’s lips curled. “Finally.”

Red flames coiled along Barkel’s arms, alive and snarling. Flame of Will.

The blonde conjured two short knives from pale gold light. Form magic. Like his.

She lunged. Fast.

Hanel threw his blade. She twisted mid-air, dodging it by inches. Her knives slashed toward his face.

He bent back, just enough. A golden shield formed in a flash, barely in time.

Her blades struck it, pale yellowish light on the amber gold one.

His shield held.

Behind her, Barkel swore.

Hanel saw it; the carriage wheels had split in two. Cleanly. The carriage rocked but didn’t fall.

Exactly as he intended.

The children inside screamed, but they were unharmed.

They wouldn’t be able to escape now.

Good.

He shoved his shield forward, sending the blonde woman flying. Her tattooed companion leapt aside as she crashed into the grass, cursing.

Hanel stood tall, golden light pulsing around him like a halo.

“Why don’t you face a real Marked,” he said coldly, “and leave the children?”

****

The night was no longer still.

It cracked and groaned beneath the weight of clashing magic, of wills set against one another like blades drawn in silence and fury. And at the center of it stood Hanel, golden-amber light bleeding from his skin, his arms raised in a defensive stance as the enemy closed in.

“Doravis,” Barkel’s voice cut through the chaos, low and authoritative. He turned slightly, nodding toward the girl with the short black hair who stood quietly behind him. “Stay back.”

She obeyed without a word.

Then, Barkel stepped forward, red flames licking along his arms like living serpents. His boots crunched against scorched earth as he moved with precision and purpose meant to kill.

But before he could take more than two steps, Eurnar was already upright, light magic crackling around her like a corona. She shook off the dirt, her golden knives reforming in her hands with a single flick of her fingers.

“Leave him to me,” she snapped, voice hot with frustration. “Don’t ruin my fun, Barkel.”

He didn’t so much as glance at her. “Go get the little girl.”

Eurnar froze. Her grin faltered, lips pulling back with a sneer. “I’m not your errand girl.”

She turned her head slightly, calling out, “Lantar.”

The bearded man, who had stood like a shadow, unmoving since the beginning, lifted his head. His black eyes finally focused, and his body snapped into motion.

As if life had been stitched into a doll.

Lantar moved with a strange, animal-like gait, half-predator, half-wraith. His head tilted to one side, smile spreading unnaturally as he began walking toward the house, toward the children.

“Bring her alive,” Eurnar said, amused.

Hanel’s heart dropped.

He slammed his hand down toward the ground, golden light exploding outward. A radiant shield shimmered into place across the main entrance of the estate, sealing it with layered defensive sigils that locked in place with audible clicks.

But that was all he had time for.

Barkel struck from the right. A torrent of red fire surged toward him, not in waves but in constant, hammering bursts, each one like a battering ram against his personal shield. The magic roared with a sound like breaking glass, and it was all Hanel could do to hold his ground as the assault pushed him back, inch by inch.

At the same time, a soft whoosh from above warned him a heartbeat too late.

Eurnar had conjured magical stairs mid-air, each one suspended by woven light. She leapt down from above like a bird of prey, knives gleaming as she slashed toward his exposed flank.

He twisted, barely deflecting the first strike with a hasty flare of energy.

The second landed.

A blade of gold light pierced into his right shoulder, sharp and cold, and pain erupted down his arm like lightning.

Hanel gasped through clenched teeth, forcing the magic to remain in place, his barrier over the house entrance still holding, flickering at the edges.

Too much. Too many fronts.

Barkel didn’t stop. Red fire swarmed over him again, relentless, breaking into splinters as they struck his weakening shield. The heat seared the air, his skin. His lungs were beginning to burn. He couldn't sustain this.

The sound came then.

Stone crumbling. Earth shifting.

Boom.

Lantar crashed through the side wall of the estate like a battering ram made of flesh and magic. The entire yard shook as rubble scattered across the garden in a smoking heap. The brute emerged from the dust cloud, expression filled with glee, eyes wide as he slipped easily past the front barrier.

Hanel’s stomach turned. That wall had been reinforced.

He was inside.

Gods, let one of them, Ayen, Galir, please let one of them have led the others to run.

Eurnar reappeared, her speed unnatural. A flash of gold again, a blade aimed straight for his chest.

He pivoted, throwing himself sideways. The knife missed his heart, but pain bloomed as it scraped across his ribs, a shallow cut that bled freely.

His vision blurred. His magic was stretched thin. He couldn’t hold them back and protect the children.

He turned in time to block another burst from Barkel, the heat scorching past his face, far too close.

Eurnar’s knife kissed the air, ready to carve another line of pain into Hanel…
But then she stopped.

Her head snapped toward the manor.

Through a second-floor window, a flare of light spilled outward.

Blue. Kade’s.

It rippled against the glass like lightning caught in water, alive and shifting.

Eurnar’s eyes widened. A silence passed over her face, then a grin unfurled, slow and delighted, as though she’d just discovered the taste of a forbidden fruit.

“Well, well…” Her voice cut sharp through the night. “Tell me, Hanel… has Lunavin been keeping secrets? More Flames than the rest of us poor wretches know about?”

Hanel’s blood chilled. He stepped forward despite the pain in his shoulder, wards flickering desperately at his command. “Stay away from them.”

Her grin widened. “That’s a yes.”

She ran, and he moved after her, but Barkel was already there. His chain-surges detonated, red light bursting in jagged arcs as he stepped directly into Hanel’s path. The force of the barrage struck like hammers, each blow cracking his wards faster than he could reinforce them. The heat seared his skin; his body screamed at him to falter.

“Barkel…” he snarled, but the man’s face was stone, unyielding. The storm of Will left no openings.

And behind that storm, Eurnar laughed.

She sprinted toward the blue light, golden sigils sparking beneath her feet. Platforms bloomed mid-air, lifting her in a jagged arc toward the second floor.

“Blue Flame,” she called, voice echoing with hungry glee. “Let’s see what kind of monster you are.”

Then she was gone, disappearing into the house.

Hanel roared and surged forward, but Barkel’s fire closed in, leaving him no path but through.

And the thought tore through him like a blade:

Kade. She’s going for the Kade.

Barkel surged again.

The air screamed with red fire like whips, each motion of Barkel’s limbs trailing phantom afterimages. Hanel ducked low, the first bolt slicing past his temple with a hiss that blistered the skin and stole his breath. The second came from below, an upward lance of flame that tore through the stone at his feet.

The ground exploded, a geyser of molten shards. Hanel staggered back, his boots skidding across fractured marble.

He didn’t have time for this.
Not with two of them now inside.

A growl rose in his throat, raw and primal. He dropped into a crouch, bleeding from the ribs, and slammed his palm against the shattered courtyard. Heat pulsed beneath his skin as he summoned the sigil from within, his mind carving the shape with trained clarity.

The glyph ignited.

Golden lines snapped into place with mathematical precision, expanding in recursive fractals from his hand. Stabilizing Anchor. A magic not meant to bind Barkel, but to steal his momentum, to remind physics who held authority here.

Barkel stepped forward, and the spell caught.

For the barest flicker of a heartbeat, the red comet of a man halted. His boots stuck to the glowing circuit and held fast, gripped by the golden matrix’s geometrical law. Not for long. But still long enough.

Hanel moved.

He twisted, ribs screaming, shoulder aflame. No room for hesitation. Three sigils burst from his fingers, inscribed by compact flicks of the wrist.

One to the bracer.
One to the thigh plate.
One to the vambrace that gripped Barkel’s sword-arm.

The golden pulses struck true. The moment they hit, a shimmer passed over Barkel’s armor, like heat bending glass. The enchantments on the plates distorted, faltered, then recalibrated out of sync. Tiny vibrations slipped beneath the skin, into the muscle memory itself, throwing off the rhythm of strikes that had once been effortless.

The next surge of flame from Barkel flared, wild and imprecise, blasting wide into a marble column with a deafening crack.

Hanel didn’t stop, even though he had no breath to spare. The pause in Barkel’s onslaught was gift of seconds, hard-won.

He ran.

Towards the shattered house. Breath catching. His shoulder ached with every motion, white-hot needles under the skin. But he forced himself forward.

He had to reach them.