Son of the Wood

Caliondur's hand clamped on Kazuki's wrist as his knuckles whitened on the hilt.

"To me, Elendir regard lasts longer than life," Caliondur said softly. "Our people still draw breath because of him, that's why I want to honor his last wish by delivering his letter. I know you are grieving, and angry. You loved Ardent, just as he loved you. The same regards you have for him, I have for Elendir." He looked at Kazuki, patient and stubborn. "Let me do this, and then do as you wish."

"How do we know she'll tell us the truth?" Kazuki asked.

Zephyr stepped forward. Her face was pale but composed. "Leave it to me."

She knelt, reached down, and pulled the dagger from the mage's back. Kazuki put a chain of light around her, binding her in place. Zephyr laid a hand on the mage's head and called, quiet but absolute. "Wake up and speak nothing but truth."

The mage's eyes fluttered open, red and cold.

She spat at them when she saw the demon lord's corpse. "Useless human," she snarled. "What are you waiting for? Do you think I'll beg for mercy? I won't. Kill me if you like. I don't care."

Caliondur went close to her, the Rúncöa in hand. "The original hero left a letter for you," he said. "Read it. Then answer our questions."

The moment the small, sealed box touched her palm, it unlatched. She read; the words on the parchment made her hands shake. When the mage finished, tears slipped down her cheeks. She folded the letter to her chest.

silence swept the chamber.

"Ask," she said finally, voice raw. "Ask, and I will tell you everything I know."

"Millennia ago—before the creation of the Gods calendar—I was Princess Almariel, daughter of King Maerion. I grew up with the golden courtyards and the songs of my people, in a land; untouched by the evils of the world. 

One day, wandering the woods, I heard a child cry.

At first, I thought it a lost villager's child. When I drew closer, I saw that it was not of the elves, but a human boy—small, dirty, laughing with eyes so open and honest they cut through me. We elves do not take kindly to other races in our lands; our law is swift and merciless. Any non-elf found within our borders would be executed. For a heartbeat I told myself to leave him. Then he smiled, and my resolve failed. He entered my heart so fast, the thought of leaving him, left my mind instantly. 

I called him Eryndor, son of the wood, and I raised him secretly, in a wooden cabin that I made, close to where he was found. I fed, bathed and taught him our tongue, wrapped him in blankets and took his hand.

He grew into a man in a blink of an eye, compared to me, who hadn't changed a bit. I taught him to use the blade. I showed him our foods and our ways, bought him a dark cloak to hide his race, and for a time it was enough. Then it was not. He confessed to me and I struck him, called him a fool. I told him that I loved him as a son. He did not listen. He kept telling me that his heart carried something else.

After a while of not visiting him, he sneaked into our castle, I saw him and hid him in my chamber. Once again, he confessed his feelings for me. Something in me—maybe the wrongness of it, the danger, the heat of forbidden fruit—moved. I listened to him. He entered my heart again, just as he did when he was a child.

I told him that that my father would execute him if he found out about them. He took my hand and said he would pay any price to be with me. He spoke of running away with him. Of leaving these lands, my people and my duty. I hesitantly accepted. 

We thought we could be two against the world as we ran. My father sent his royal guards after us—beast-tamer, strategist, trickster wordsmith—those who did not fail at their task. 

They found us and dragged us back.

The moment father set eyes on him; he ordered the flames. I begged. I screamed. I fell on my knees before him and before the people I once cared for. I begged for mercy but they all cheered for his punishment. Eryndor met the flames with no pleading, no crying. He smiled as flames took him from me.

Afterward I could not tell whether I mourned the child I had raised or the lover I had escaped with. The cheering followed me into sleep. The memory of that sound hollowed me. I stopped eating and sleeping.

After a while, they allowed me to walk the castle again, but never to leave it. I sought books in the library—books that might teach me how to deal with my grief. One day, the librarian—soft eyes and a pitying heart—opened the forbidden section to me. There, bound in black leather, lay a book that called to me. The book of the Fallen God, Ahriman. He had been cast out for what he did—creating a new affinity, born of darkness.

I do not know if it was grief that made my fingers seek that book or the book that seized me. 

I took the librarian's life, her clothes and the book. And escaped to the wooden cabin where Eryndor lived. His cloak; still smelled of him. I wore it, so he can be with me, wherever I went.

The book opened my eyes—not just to dark affinity but to what I needed to heal the pain in my heart. The cure the pages offered was others' suffering.

I tried experiments first on the castle's guards who had dragged us back, but they became my children, broken minds and devoted hearts. Even the wooden cabin had come to life; as it pulsed like a heart. When I had learned everything the book had to offer, as it lay like a second skin, I set my plan in motion.

I sent my children across the lands to steal every harvest and poison every field they could find. Then I returned as a savior with food wrapped in black gifts. They became the fallen, mindless animal, neither living nor dead. But still my heart found no peace. I turned to greater cruelty; I struck at the humans as well, hoping their suffering would end mine.

Then he came—Elendir, the hero sent by the Gods. He was an unstoppable force, wielding an affinity made of light itself. He routed my children and struck me down. Yet when he looked at me, he paused. In his eyes, I felt a pain; similar to mine. He spared me and walked away. I didn't know if it was an act of kindness to let me live or an act of cruelty to prolong my suffering. Perhaps he could not kill someone whose grief mirrored his own. Either way, the reprieve long outlasted its kindness; the ache returned, and the hunger in me did not abate."

Back in the tower's chamber, she faltered and folded her fingers around the letter.

"Thank you," she whispers now, voice soft as paper. "For bringing me this letter. It has eased something in me that I thought would never rest."

The mage continued, her voice flat. "If you want the curse of these lands lifted," she said, "all dark-affinity users must perish." She pointed at Kazuki. "That includes your demon lord."

Shock went through them like a sword.

"What?" Caliondur gasped.

"Our demon lord?" Zephyr's voice cracked.

"You mean Kazuki?" Vada whispered.

The mage's gaze locked on them. "You stole from me the summoning parchment that binds; the summoned demon lord candidate to that relic. You used it to call him forth."

Silence took over them for a moment.

"How can we reverse the summoning?" Kazuki demanded, breaking the silence.

She shook her head slowly. "I do not know how to reverse it. There was nothing written on it about reversing it. I only know this: if the relic itself is destroyed, the soul within the vessel will be freed. Your relic is already cracked. It will not hold on much longer."

"Where is Ahriman's book?" Zephyr asked, face filled with fury.

"It burned to ash, once I finished reading." The mage replied.

Without another breath Zephyr swung the Lightbringer. the blade cut deeply through the mage's throat, life spilling from her as she crumpled to the floor.

Caliondur looked at the relic on Kazuki's chest. "By the Gods," he whispered, reading the inscription:

"The one who shall rule over the darkness."

The chamber fell silent again, all eyes fixed on Kazuki, their minds filling with questions they dared not ask.