He didn't shout. Didn't channel.
The blade in his hand didn't require techniques. No names. No flourish.
It took his sunlight, what was left of it, and swallowed it whole.
Then it asked for more.
His right arm twisted. The nerves inside flared like burning roots. Flesh began to peel. The magic climbed his shoulder, wrapped around his spine. He didn't stop.
'One swing. That's all it takes.'
Dythrael raised his hand.
Eldrin's body screamed.
Blood streamed from his nose.
His vision fractured, but he held the blade tighter.
A single horizontal arc that bisected the entire courtyard in half.
The air exploded. The light reformed, just for a second, into the shape of a full sun cresting the ground. A golden fan carved a kilometer-wide swath straight forward, vaporizing everything in its path.
Everything except Dythrael.
The blast passed through Maeven behind him, who blurred out of the way like he'd known it was coming. Trees, dirt, rock, all gone.
The blade in Eldrin's hand cracked.
His right arm went with it.
Collapsed limp at his side, scorched, empty, useless.
Across the ruined earth, Dythrael stood still.
His coat was torn at the edge of the sleeve.
And his left hand was bleeding.
He looked at it with a strange kind of curiosity.
Then raised his gaze.
"You gave your arm," he said quietly, "for that?"
Eldrin's breath rattled in his throat.
The light had gone out from behind his eyes.
Dythrael stepped forward.
"You really are willing to die for them, aren't you."
Just reached for the stone with his one good hand.
Dythrael crouched beside him. Thаnks fоr rеаding—brоught tо yоu by М|VL|ЕМРYR.
"Rest, Sunblade," he said calmly.
Then turned and walked toward the estate.
She'd never seen him fall before.
Not during the coastal siege. Not when the skyships came. Not even when the firewalls of Solrendel collapsed under a hundred thousand screams.
Eldrin Sunblade, High King of the Elven Sovereignty, knelt in the dirt like a broken statue. His blade was gone. His arm hung limp at his side, blackened with burned veins and torn muscle. His breath came short.
Her fingers curled around the hilt of her saber so tight the leather grip creaked.
'No. Get up. You're not done. You never're done.'
He just stared at the ground, silent, like he was trying to will the blood back into his body.
The enemy didn't wait.
Maeven stepped between the flames like he owned the world. His white hair fluttered without wind. His coat was ash-stained now, but that smile, lazy, crooked, hadn't changed once.
She hated that smile.
"I wouldn't," he said, almost conversationally, without looking at her.
Seraphine was already halfway down the stair. "Move."
"You don't really want to do this."
"Your liege is crippled."
"Don't need him right now."
Seraphine rolled her neck once.
The cracking sound was sharp enough to echo off the scorched stone.
"I die on my own time," she said.
She didn't shout. Didn't flare mana.
She blurred forward, blade angled low.
Her affinity surged through her calves, her joints, her balance. No show. Just speed. She moved like she'd trained to fight ten men with one hand tied. Because she had.
She reached Maeven in less than a blink.
He stepped sideways like he was dodging spilled wine.
Her blade missed his ribs by an inch.
The counter came fast.
Not even forceful, just a flick of his fingers, and the air around her bent.
She felt it a half-second too late.
Like gravity changed directions, like her body didn't know where down was anymore.
Her feet left the stone. Her shoulder slammed backward into a wall that hadn't been there a second ago. Then she dropped, the pressure gone.
Her balance rolled. Her stance shattered.
She recovered in a crouch.
Maeven stood with his hands in his coat pockets.
"You've got good legs," he said.
She exhaled once through her nose.
This time she didn't go straight.
She veered left, spun off a crumbling stone ledge, used a short gust to twist over his line of sight.
Her blade arced for his shoulder.
His hand caught her wrist mid-swing.
Fingers like iron. Like anchors.
"How old are you?" she muttered, voice tight.
He tilted his head. "Old enough to know elves always ask that when they lose."
She slammed back into the broken steps. Coughed once. Blood in her mouth.
The saber fell from her fingers.
She reached for it anyway.
Maeven stepped forward and kicked it aside.
"You've got guts. I respect that. But this isn't your fight."
Her voice rasped. "It is now."
Just low enough to meet her eye to eye.
"You really don't know what you're protecting, do you?"
'Protecting my queen. That's all that matters.'
He watched her a second longer.
Then stood. "I'll keep you alive. Consider it a kindness."
Toward the royal wing.
Seraphine pressed one palm to the ground. Her balance still wobbled. Her shoulder was likely dislocated. Her jaw clicked when she moved it.
And she wasn't done yet.
Melion's sandals made no sound on the polished stone, but the silence wasn't calm. It rang with tension, sharp, stretched thin across the breath of every person walking with her.
Three guards, two handmaidens, and the sound of her own heartbeat in her ears.
They turned another corner. Narrow corridor. Tall arched windows with colored glass, red, gold, and deep green. The morning light filtered in like it didn't know the estate was under siege.