The five elves rushed him. Jor came first, knife out, aiming to gut him.
’Amateur,’ Nox thought. He remembered some moves from the movie. ’Bob and weave.’
Jor’s knife slashed. Nox dropped, bending his knees. The blade cut the air over his head. He came back up and threw a hard hook at Jor’s ribs.
’Activate Primal Void.’
His fist hit, causing a wet crack.
Jor’s eyes went wide. All the air left his lungs. He flew sideways and hit the dirt, his knife falling from his hand.
The other four elves stopped. They stared at their boss on the ground.
’One,’ he thought, shaking his hand. The punch had hurt him, too. ’The guy in the movie never hit that hard.’
"What are you waiting for?!" Jor choked out from the ground. "Kill him!"
Taren roared and charged, swinging his sword high.
’This one’s an idiot,’ he remembered. ’Reckless.’
He didn’t back up. He threw a quick left jab. Taren knocked it away with his sword arm, leaving himself wide open.
He threw his right hand. It was a wild, heavy swing with all his strength behind it. It smashed into Taren’s jaw.
There was a loud snap. The elf’s eyes rolled back as he crumpled to the ground, out cold.
The three elves left—Valeria and two swordsmen—just stood there. They stared at their fallen friends, then at Nox. A dark smoke curled from his mouth.
’Just like Mark and his friends,’ a cold thought surfaced. ’Always brave in a pack. Guess this is what it feels like from the other side.’
"You..." one of the swordsmen stammered, taking a step back. "You’re a monster."
Nox’s lips pulled back from his teeth. "Took you long enough."
He took a step. The swordsman flinched, then turned and ran, dropping his sword as he fled into the trees.
He let him go. ’Trash.’
The last swordsman looked at his friend running away, then looked at Nox. He threw his weapon down. "I yield," he said, voice shaking.
Now it was just him and Valeria.
She stood twenty feet away, her bow up, an arrow pointed at his heart. Her face was stone, but he saw her hands were shaking.
He started walking toward her. His feet making no sound. It was like a reaper walking to claim its victim.
She followed him with the arrow. "Don’t come any closer," she said.
He kept walking, his steps slow and even. One step, then another.
Valeria’s hands trembled, but the arrow didn’t waver. It stayed pointed right at his heart.
’She’s scared,’ he thought. ’But she’s not running. Interesting.’
He stopped a few feet from her, well within the range where she couldn’t possibly miss. He just looked at her, his head tilted slightly.
"You know," he said, his voice quiet and conversational. "You remind me of someone I know."
She stared at him, her expression of cold focus finally breaking into confusion. "What?"
"Quiet," he said, nodding. "Annoying. But not stupid." He gestured back towards the unconscious elves on the ground. "Not like them."
Her face twisted, her confusion replaced by a flash of pure venom. "I am nothing like a friend of a human."
"I didn’t say she was my friend," he replied, his tone unchanged.
"Your kind is a plague," she spat. "You are a disease that consumes everything beautiful in this world and leaves only rot behind."
He had heard this before, from Jor and the others. But this was different. Theirs was just angry noise, loud and empty. Hers felt real, like she truly and utterly hates humans.
"Yeah, I got the talking points already."
"You guys really need some new material." He watched her, his eyes narrowed, analyzing. "But you really mean it, don’t you? This isn’t just because I’m human. This is personal."
She flinched, a barely perceptible tightening of her jaw. It was the only confirmation he needed.
"What did they take from you?" he asked. The question wasn’t sympathetic. It was just curious.
Her cold expression slammed back into place. "I will not speak of my pain to a human," she said, her voice like ice. "Now die."
He just shrugged. "Fine. Don’t care anyway."
He turned his back on her.
It was an insult. A statement.
The thought hit her with the force of a physical blow. He was just walking away, dismissing her, her pain, her entire world of grief, like it was a mild inconvenience.
The smoke hit her then, a memory that never faded. The smell of burning pine and... something else. Something sweet and terrible. Her father’s shout, a name she could no longer let herself remember, swallowed by the roar of the flames. Her mother, her face a full of terror, pushing her into the undergrowth. "Run, Val, run!"
And Elia. Her little sister. Her hand, so small, slipping from her grasp as a human soldier in crude iron armor grabbed her.
They had taken everything. Burned everything. Left nothing but ash and ghosts.
And this boy, this human, he had the gall to turn his back on that ghost. On her.
’No.’ The thought was a shard of ice in her heart. ’You don’t get to walk away.’
Tears blurred her vision. Her hands, moving on their own, pulled the bow string further. The world narrowed to the shape of his back, a black silhouette against the dappled light of the forest. This was for her mother. For her father. For Elia.
Her fingers released the string.
The arrow hissed through the air, a promise of vengeance.
But it never found its target.
She gasped, her mind reeling. ’Where—?’
Displaced air brushed her cheek.
He was in front of her. His fist was pulled back, wreathed in a storm of dark, swirling smoke. It was frozen in place, less than an inch from her face. The sheer force of its halted momentum blasted her hair back from her forehead and stung her tear-filled eyes.
She stared at the fist, at the promise of a death so fast she never would have seen it coming. The rage, the grief, the burning hatred—it was all extinguished in an instant, replaced by a cold, absolute fear.
He looked down at her, his eyes holding none of the fury she expected.
Then, the swirling smoke around his fist dissipated. He slowly, deliberately, uncurled his hand.
He patted her on the head, a slow, almost clumsy gesture.
She looked up at him, her mind a complete blank, tears still tracking through the dirt on her face.
"I get it," he said, his voice quiet and flat. "Losing everything."
He dropped his hand and turned away again, his back to her once more.
"So stop crying. We’re going back."