List of characters within this book (more to be introduced later):
Odyn Albanar- Also called Hunter by members of his family at times; He's the Eldest of the Albanar children and the first in line to become the next leader of the Dark Elves. He's never been one for formalities and would rather dedicate his life to help those who are oppressed and in need. Doesn't trust Humans very much.
For reference this what Odyn looks like at 8 years old:

Roy Albanar- The second prince of the Albanar Royal Family. Was raised to be the next King, due to his eldest brother passing that birthright onto him. He's cordial to all people and will not stand for injustice. He's an excellent swordsman and does his best to act as the heir apparent, is also fiercely loyal.
Sarai Albanar- The only girl of the Albanar Royal family and is very much what young Elven sword maidens aspire to be like. She's a strong, young Elven woman who stands up for what she believes in. Will do anything to protect her family and those She's close to. Sarai also adores her brothers, older and younger. While she is strong and very much a warrior, she is still a normal young woman with the desires and interests befitting her femine self.
Ichihana Anuyachi- Strong willed and doesn't like to show her emotions to anyone other than those she trusts and cares genuinely for. She has a hard time bearing her emotions towards others, but is willing for those close to her. She sees any male her age as not worth her time, unless you count the few friends she has. Secretly a very nice and charming girl underneath her hard-core exterior and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty if it means doing the right thing. Her personal moto is "Punish the unjust, protect the innocent ". Because of her personality that rarely bears its true colors to outsiders, she's seen as unapproachable many times. Nicknamed "Icy Blade Empress" due to her cold persona towards those she doesn't know.
Lilian Anuyachi- You could call her the polar opposite of her older sister in terms of personality. Lilian is the prototypical girl that just wants to befriend people while protecting those who cannot protect themselves. Because of her cheerful attitude and friendly personality, she's very easy to get along with. She's also quite skilled at healing magic and mid-range combat due to her weapon of choice, the Naginata.
Khanna Albanar- She's the cousin of Odyn and the royal family and seen as the surrogate "Big Sister" of the group of Dark Elven lords. She's a Commander in the Elven Vanguard from a Young teenager and takes defending her own kind and loved ones very seriously and with pride. She can be quite hard headed and stubborn to a fault. Khanna is afraid of no man and is out to prove she's just as strong and talented as any man is. She simply wants to prove herself as a capable warrior, not to be superior to men, but to be on equal footing with them.
Baron Caldern- He's the childhood friend of Sarai and a very troubled young Elf as he struggles with doing the right thing and betraying his own father. Hailing from a very dark environment with his sister, Hailfire, Baron is ever loyal to whatever cause he thinks is right. Kind, loyal, and very dependable, he is the perfect example of a true and tried subordinate upon joining the Citadel Guard under the command of Zero Arkham. His ultimate goal is to save only his sister, but his father as well from the darkness.
Hailfire Caldern- The younger sister of Baron, who unfortunately was put into the same dark environment as her brother due to the decisions of their father, Overfire. Her sometimes timid nature is simply a byproduct of the dark environment she was put into in order to protect herself. Hailfire loves her father and brother very dearly and struggles to make the right decision when she considers how it may affect her loved ones. As warrior, she's been trained by Overfire (their father) and Vladek( their uncle) to be as strong as she could possibly get. Though, it was not without scars, she still bears the marks of scars on her face from training with her father and uncle when she messed up. She's kind and obedient, some would say submissive. Willing to trust people with cautious optimism due to her dark upbringing.
Other characters: Heroes (side/supporting cast)
Berethon Albanar (High King of the Dark Elves/ Father of Odyn & Roy)
Hyatan Albanar (High Queen of the Dark Elves/Mother of Odyn & Roy)
Valvadern Arkham (General/ Childhood friend of Odyn)
Zero Arkham( Bodyguard/ Childhood friend of the Albanar siblings)
Sybryh Arkham (Co-Commander of The Royal Elven Vanguard/ Childhood Friend of Odyn)
Raptaryn Andross (General of the Elven Army/Khanna's Father/ Bèrethon's brother in law)
Lailah Albanar(Sister of Hyatan/ mother of Khanna/ Duchess of Xenia)
Lynnia Valcrum (Commander of the Royal Elven Guard)
Kazuya Anuyachi (Father of Ichihana &Lilian)
Yui Anuyachi (Mother of Ichihana & Lilian)
Seth Kyocera (Empathetic Human Samurai)
Alan Kyocera (Son of Seth. Empathetic towards Elves)
Byakuga Izanami (Human Samurai/Rival of Odyn)
Sakurai Kohen (Childhood friend of Ichihana)
Villains:
Abrainak Yokohama
Aku Yasutora
Sato Yami
Kitane Yamitosu (demon)
Gunther Vanworchest
Vladek Odarinath
Overfire Caldern
Audin Ferfevere
(More characters to come in the future)
P.s: This story is 100% original and i am not taking any influences from anime or at least not trying to copy anything lol. Any characters that appear in this book are all original characters I came up with as a writer, just fyi. Combat is... a work in progress to write so bear with me on that lolz 😆. That disclaimer out of the way, now it's onto the story!
Eldric Chronicles: The Bonded
Book One
"A harsh answer stirs up strife and anger, but kindness will turn away wrath." — Fourth Chapter, Verse Eleven, The Ancient Book of Light
Prologue: An Ultimatum Between Life and Death
Space.
Throughout the ages, inquisitive minds have looked out into that vast, silent expanse beyond the sky—a darkness so profound it feels like its own version of eternity. To witness it is to experience a strange duality: feeling impossibly small yet entirely full, as if the universe itself is pressing a quiet secret right against your chest.
Yet, space is never truly empty. It breathes. It connects. And hidden deep within its boundless dark lies a threshold most mortal eyes will never find—the Fury Realm Gate, a shimmering tear in reality where the heavens and the abyss press against each other like palms meeting in prayer. It serves as a bridge between the radiant halls of angels and deities and the shadow-drowned kingdom of fallen heroes and demon-gods, allowing all manner of entities to pass back and forth.
Two primary forces dominate this threshold.
The first is Udiya, the God of Creation and Life, whose light breathed shape into all living things. The second is Mordred, the God of Darkness and Death, the sworn enemy of everything that breathes and hopes. These two divine powers have clashed since before memory. In recent years, Mordred's disciples have grown bold, creeping across the universe like a slow, patient rot and corrupting hearts that once held warmth. Their ultimate goal is the resurrection of their lord, and they are getting closer to achieving it.
However, this is not a story about gods.
This is a story about people. It is about a hatred so old and deeply rooted that it has morphed into instinct, and about the sheer cost of choosing to love someone anyway. It follows a young man given every reason to close his heart off from the world, yet who repeatedly chooses to keep it open. It tackles the painful realities of prejudice—what it does to those who carry it and those who survive it. Most of all, it is about learning, slowly and painfully, that kindness is never weakness, but rather the most ferocious force in existence.
It all begins here.
On the planet of Arkynor.
Historians have long described it as a mirror world—a reflection of Earth built from the same fundamental clay but shaped by entirely different hands. Where Earth turned inward over time, growing proud and fractious, Arkynor was designed as a counterbalance. Udiya did not abandon his first children after the Great Deception; instead, he answered that change with deliberate intention, crafting the Arkynoreans and the Eldarians as guardians for humanity and protectors against every form of evil.
It was, as these things often go, a thankless role.
The Arkynoreans were frequently ostracized by the very people they were created to shield—mistrusted, feared, and sometimes hunted. While the darkness plaguing human hearts inevitably infected a few Arkynoreans as well, a deeper scar was left by a single ugly incident, one so severe that its mere mention still tightens jaws and curls hands into fists. But that history belongs to another time.
For now, Arkynor was alive and breathtaking.
Despite the scars of ancient wars and a rugged climate, the planet remained stunning. Rolling green pastures stretched out toward horizons bordered by violet mountains, while aquamarine rivers cut through valleys so lush they seemed to glow under Arkynor's twin suns. Dense, ancient forests hummed with sounds and scents no traveler from another world could ever fully put into words. It had been a long time since human feet last touched Arkynor's soil, a separation strictly enforced by its rulers. Following the last great war between the races nearly fifty years ago, a fragile peace had finally taken root in the silence.
A peace that was holding strong—at least for now.
Arkynor was divided into six distinct kingdoms, each governed by its own people:
The sturdy, craftsman-hearted Dwarves of Argonath
The Sylphs and dark-blooded Elves of Odarinath
The Gnomes and Dryads of the wide plains of Avalon
The brooding, mountain-ringed country of Caldern
The distant eastern kingdom of Dagghorlad, known by some as the Dragon's Fang for reasons lost to time
At the center of it all, the largest and most powerful of them: the Kingdom of Albanar
Albanar's military was unmatched among the six kingdoms. Under a lesser ruler, it could easily have transformed into an empire built on conquest. Instead, the High King consistently chose diplomacy over dominance and treaties over threats. As a result, the relationship between the six kingdoms functioned less like a political alliance and more like a brotherhood. Disputes were settled through dialogue first, with violence treated as an absolute last resort—reluctantly reached and swiftly ended. It was an imperfect peace, but it was peace nonetheless, and the people of Albanar wore it with a quiet, abiding pride.
Our journey now leads us to the capital city of Albanar—the royal seat of Xenia, that gleaming jewel nestled among verdant green hills. Inside the palace courtyard on a warm afternoon, a young prince was receiving a thorough, rigorous beating from his father.
The sharp crack of wooden training swords rang out across the grounds like a steady, hurried heartbeat.
Odyn Albanar was eight years old. Tall for his age and strikingly so, he possessed dark skin resembling smooth, polished stone, pointed ears marking him unmistakably as Elven kin, and eyes the color of living flame. That deep, molten orange burned with an intensity almost too large for a child's face. His dark blue hair—bordering on black—was swept back beneath a worn army-green headband resting just below the silver circlet of the royal family. He wore a light blue shirt beneath a dark green jacket, black trousers tucked neatly into steel-gray boots, and silver fingerless gloves that were practical and unadorned for work rather than ceremony. Strapped to his back in a blue-and-gold sheath was his actual sword, though for now, it was the practice blade in his hand that demanded all his attention.
Facing him was High King Berethon.
Standing nearly seven feet tall by human reckoning, Berethon was broad-shouldered and unhurried. His presence carried the unmistakable gravity of someone who had long since stopped needing to prove anything to anyone. He shared his son's dark skin, blue hair cascading to his shoulders and matched by a neatly trimmed goatee, and identical orange eyes. Yet, where Odyn's eyes blazed with youthful restlessness, Berethon's held a steadier, deeper heat reminiscent of banked coals rather than wild fire. Dressed in royal blues and gold, he moved through their sparring session with the effortless economy of a veteran warrior.
Which was precisely why Odyn found himself at a severe disadvantage.
Odyn charged once more.
With a swift rush of movement and a sharp crack of wood, Odyn found himself flat on his back, staring up at the pale sky as the breath was knocked out of him for what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon. The grass felt cool against his spine. Various minor cuts and scrapes smarted across his arms and face, and his knuckles ached inside his leather gloves.
He sat up.
He stood.
He raised his practice blade.
Come on, he told himself, setting his jaw. Again.
Berethon watched his son with an expression that balanced deep admiration with gentle amusement. The boy had never once asked to stop. Not once in all their years of training had Odyn Albanar done anything other than get back up.
"Have you had enough yet, son?" Berethon asked, resting one hand casually on his hip.
"Not a chance, Father." The words came out through gritted teeth—strained yet steady, undercut only slightly by a quiet wince as a cut on his forearm flared. "I can keep going."
Berethon smiled and lowered his training blade.
"Perhaps," he said softly. "But I believe we are done for the day."
Odyn blinked, lowering his own sword partway as confusion flickered across his face. "I don't understand. Why? I can keep—"
"Come here."
It was not a command in the strict sense. Berethon spoke with the gentle cadence he used for all his children, kneeling down to meet his son at eye level—a quiet gesture that always struck observers as remarkable, seeing this towering king fold himself to a child's height without a trace of self-consciousness. He placed one broad hand firmly on Odyn's shoulder.
"I need you to understand something. Can you do that for me?"
Odyn nodded once, curtly. He would listen; he always listened.
"You possess remarkable dedication," Berethon said. "I am proud of you for that—genuinely. But a body that is never allowed to rest is a body that will eventually fail you at the worst possible moment. Durability is not the same thing as endurance. You cannot protect anyone if you've worn yourself into the ground before the real fight even begins." He let the words settle. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
The orange-eyed boy went quiet for a moment. Slowly, the heavy tension in his shoulders released, and he let out a long breath. "I understand, Father. I'll rest."
Berethon reached out and ruffled his son's hair, earning a swift, unmistakable look of embarrassment—the universal expression of an eight-year-old who considers himself far too serious for such playful treatment—before stepping back.
Before turning to walk away, Odyn bowed. Pressing a flattened fist against an open palm at his chest, he performed the traditional Elven gesture of respect between student and teacher. "Thank you for the lesson, Father. As always."
Berethon watched his eldest son head off to wash up, lingering in the courtyard for a moment after the boy had vanished from view. There was a particular kind of pride that defied simple words—a full, aching warmth living right behind the ribs that asked for no expression. He felt it deeply now.
That boy, Berethon thought, is going to be extraordinary.
The capital city of Xenia lived up to its legendary reputation on an afternoon like this one.
Its streets were wide and immaculate, lined with buildings of pale stone and dark timber that caught the slant of the late sun to glow with a faint amber warmth. Cheerful stalls belonging to weavers, herbalists, and armorers crowded closely along the main thoroughfares. Children darted playfully between market carts, while Elven women dressed in layered robes moved with that characteristic, unhurried grace that always caused human visitors to pause and stare in quiet admiration.
Amidst the bustling life of the city, holding her older brother's hand with the fierce, unselfconscious grip of a child who had no intention of ever letting go, walked Sarai Albanar.
At five years old, she was small for her age, boasting a cascade of deep crimson hair that fell in soft, wayward curls around a face that people naturally described as sweet—round-cheeked, bright-eyed, and lit with the specific incandescence of a child who had not yet learned to dim her light for others. She shared the same dark skin, pointed ears, and burning orange eyes as her brother, though in her, those eyes danced rather than blazed. Dressed in a simple pale dress and sandals, she skipped alongside Odyn with a cheerful, bouncing energy that brought reflexive smiles to the faces of passing mothers.
"You took forever," she announced, looking up at him with a tone implying she was being exceptionally generous about it.
"I know," Odyn said, looking down at her. He had dropped to one knee to meet her at eye level, his expression entirely earnest. "Did you wait long?"
Sarai's nose scrunched up. "A little bit." Then she beamed. "But it's okay because big brother's here now."
As he straightened and allowed his sister to pull him forward, Odyn decided it was far from the worst thing he had ever been told.
Their mother watched them go. High Queen Hyatan stood near the edge of the market square with a small, private smile playing on her lips. Her beauty was rooted less in mere physical features and more in her presence—composed, warm, and carrying the unhurried confidence of a woman who had spent years fully growing into her authority. She watched her children until they vanished around the curve of the bustling street before turning her attention peacefully back to her own affairs.
Later, as the busy streets gave way to the green-shadowed quiet of the surrounding forest, Odyn found a secluded clearing and began doing what he always did whenever he had his sister to himself.
He trained her.
Sarai had her own unique ideas about what "playing" entailed, but she had inherited enough of her family's inherent discipline to understand, even at five years old, that what Odyn was teaching her mattered. She wobbled on her practice stance. She swung her small fists against the padded targets strapped to his hands with far more enthusiasm than precision. When she inevitably lost her balance and tumbled sideways into the soft grass, she simply laughed—and got right back up, still giggling.
"Shift your feet a little more to the right," Odyn instructed her patiently. "Widen your base—like this. You'll get a lot more power in your swing."
Sarai adjusted her footing with the hyper-focused seriousness of someone performing a very important ceremony, then looked up at him for confirmation.
"Better?"
"Better," he agreed. The slight shift in his face—a brief softening of his usual serious demeanor—was a side of him that would have deeply surprised anyone who only knew the young prince from a distance.
After an hour, they took a break to rest in the cool shade of an ancient tree, its bark smooth and silver, its dense canopy turning the fading afternoon light into a delicate lacework on the ground. Odyn used the quiet time to continue his sister's lessons in reading and in Ancient Elvish—that old, bone-deep language that carried their people's history in every syllable the way a river carries sediment: quietly, steadily, shaping everything it touches. He wanted Sarai to grow up knowing precisely who she was. He wanted her to hold a conversation in the tongue of their ancestors, to read the ancient texts when she grew older, and to understand the long, overarching story of which she was a small, vital part.
He also wanted—with the quietly ferocious protectiveness of an older sibling who viewed it as a fundamental law of nature—for her to be able to take care of herself if anything were ever to happen to him.
He didn't examine that thought too closely. He simply acted on it, as he always had.
When they finally rose and began making their way back home through the lengthening evening shadows of the forest, Odyn fell silent.
He heard it first—the way he always heard things first, through that peculiar Elven attunement to the weight and pattern of sound that turned the world into a kind of ongoing conversation most people didn't even know they were having.
Footsteps.
Multiple sets of them. Heavy and deliberate, with the distinctive, rhythmic clinking of metal catching on underbrush—the unmistakable signature of armor. They were moving in to converge on their position from three distinct directions.
He didn't recognize the footsteps.
That, more than anything else, was what made his stomach drop.
In his eight years of life in Xenia, Odyn had grown familiar with the particular sound of nearly everyone who traversed these forests. Guards walked a certain way. Merchants walked another. His father's soldiers carried a cadence as recognizable as a signature. But these individuals moved with none of that familiarity. Their footsteps were foreign, strange, carrying a quality that Odyn could only describe internally as cold. The energy preceding them felt compressed, intentional, and pointed—heavy like a held breath in the dark.
He raised his arm in a quiet, instinctive gesture. Sarai, who had been mid-sentence describing something fascinating she had seen in the market, fell silent instantly. Her small hand tightened fiercely around the back of his shirt.
"Sarai," he whispered, his voice remarkably calm. "It's alright. Stay close to me. We're going to be fine."
She didn't say a word in response. Instead, she pressed herself flat against his back and refused to let go.
His hand drifted down to the grip of his sword.
Then, they stepped out from the shadows of the trees.
Human mercenaries. At least twelve of them, heavily armed and wearing mismatched pieces of armor that spoke of rough-and-tumble contract work rather than official military service—gear acquired piecemeal, functional rather than uniform. They fanned out quietly, arranging themselves in a loose, practiced arc.
Odyn stared at them.
The realization hit him with physical force. Humans. Inside Elven territory. It registered first as sheer confusion, which quickly curdled into a cold, bright anger that swept through him like a sudden wind. His hands automatically balled into fists at his sides.
What are they doing here?
One of them stepped forward. He was broad-shouldered, with a smirk carved so deeply into his features that it seemed structural—the kind of expression worn by men who had done this exact thing a hundred times before. He looked at the two young Elves with a casual, comfortable contempt that was, perhaps, the most unsettling thing about him.
"Well, well." He glanced back at his companions, a short, dry laugh escaping him. "Boss was right after all. We've got ourselves a genuine pair of Dark Woodland Elf brats."
Odyn stepped forward. He brought his arm out in front of his sister, placing himself squarely between her and the approaching men.
"What do you want?" he demanded. It wasn't quite a question.
The mercenary tilted his head, studying the boy with the air of someone mildly amused by a stray cat puffing its fur. "Ooh. Feisty, aren't you, kid? Can't say I dislike it."
Behind him, two of the younger mercenaries were already exchanging knowing glances, drifting lazily and confidently toward the children's flanks—the sure-footed movement of men who had zero doubt about how this encounter would end.
"We could rough them up a little," one muttered under his breath. "Boss never said we couldn't."
From the back of the group, a sharper voice cut through the tension: "Don't you dare! We were given explicit instructions—no harm to the elves."
The owner of that voice was clearly the true leader of the outfit: older than the rest, quieter, with black hair threaded with white and the weathered, resigned face of a man who had spent long years being ordered to do things he found deeply distasteful. He stepped forward, his mouth set in a hard line. "I said stand down—"
He didn't finish the sentence in time.
Two of the younger men had already made their move, lunging forward to grab Sarai.
What followed was not the lopsided, effortless victory they had anticipated.
Pure light erupted from Odyn's hands—not the trained, refined magic of an adult practitioner, but the raw, furious luminescence of a gifted child pushed far past his threshold. It struck the reaching men like a physical wall, throwing them violently backward. In the brief window of chaos that bought him, Odyn moved—fast, precise, putting into practice every single hour his father had knocked him into the dirt, and every single hour he had stubbornly climbed back up from it.
A lightning-fast knee to the midsection. A sharp elbow to the jaw. A controlled, fluid throw that sent one man sprawling while Odyn was already pivoting toward the next.
The mercenaries' leader—Seth Kyocera, a samurai of considerable experience who possessed the profound misfortune of commanding twelve men who hadn't listened to a single word he said—slowly pressed one hand over his eyes.
"He has light magic," he muttered mostly to himself. "I told them. I literally told them."
His men groaned and cursed loudly from the grass.
Only three of them were left standing now, and they looked considerably less confident than they had sixty seconds ago. Their expressions had rapidly cycled from surprise to indignation, finally settling into something much harder and uglier.
"You're going to regret that, little bastard," one growled.
Odyn didn't answer. His eyes were steady, his breathing controlled. With fluid precision, he shifted into the widest of his practice stances—the one his father called The Anchor, reserved for moments when you intend to hold your ground no matter what.
He didn't see Seth move.
The mercenary leader was neither careless nor reckless, and he certainly hadn't survived this long in a brutal profession by being either. While his subordinates had committed every scrap of their attention to the blue-haired boy standing defiantly in front of them, Seth had slipped away. Quietly. Carefully. Taking a wide arc along the periphery of the skirmish, he hugged the shadows and silence until he arrived precisely where the brawl had left entirely unguarded.
Right behind Sarai.
There was a small, terrible sound—a quick, sharp intake of breath. Then, Sarai froze, her brother's name dying instantly in her throat as one of Seth's arms clamped across her shoulders, a cold blade resting perilously close to her soft cheek.
Her wide eyes welled with hot tears. She didn't make a sound. At five years old, she was terrified out of her mind, yet trying desperately—in the innate, valiant way of very young things—not to let herself cry.
Odyn stopped dead.
The fight drained out of him instantly, like water pouring from a broken vessel, replaced by something infinitely heavier. He looked at his sister's face—at the trembling tears, at the desperate, trusting way her eyes locked onto his—and he made his choice.
Slowly, deliberately, he unbuckled his sword and let it slide to the earth. He raised his hands.
"All right," he said. His voice was quiet, but it was remarkably steady. "I'll make you a different offer."
Seth regarded him closely. Something shifted deep behind the older man's eyes—not cruelty, Odyn noted, and not sadistic pleasure. It was something much closer to quiet pain.
"I'm listening."
"Take me instead." Odyn walked forward step by step, his hands still raised, each motion calm and measured. Around him, the remaining standing mercenaries shifted uneasily, completely thrown off-balance by the sudden shift in the situation's gravity.
"She is five years old," Odyn continued, his molten orange eyes locking onto Seth's brown ones without a single flinch. "She can barely speak your language. She cannot perform any labor you would find useful, and she would be nothing but grief and confusion in a foreign place." He stopped just a few feet away from the leader. "Take me. I can work. I understand your language. I won't need looking after."
A brief, heavy pause hung in the forest air.
"But let her go home to her family."
Seth remained completely still for a long, agonizing moment.
Then, slowly, he released Sarai.
She stumbled forward a single step, then froze in place, staring horror-struck at her brother. Before she could reach him, the mercenaries closed in around Odyn, their rough hands grabbing his arms. For a suspended second, the entire world seemed to contract around a single, irreversible point: a boy of eight and a half years old, willingly shackled for the sole crime of making himself a living shield.
The men who had taken the worst of the beating were far less measured in their response. A disorganized, enthusiastic wave of boots and fists rained down on the dark elf boy as payback. Seth's barked order to stop came a few seconds too late to prevent the retaliation, though it arrived just in time to cut it short.
"Enough!" His voice cracked across the clearing like a whip. "Do you want the entire Elven Vanguard descending on us out here?!"
The mercenaries backed away, muttering sullenly.
Odyn slowly picked himself off the ground. A deep cut above his eye leaked blood, blurring his vision. Bracing his chained arms, he found his footing step by step. Once standing, he looked across the clearing to where his sister stood completely rooted in place.
She had finally stopped trying to hold back her tears. They streamed freely down her small face, one tiny hand stretched outward toward him—reaching across a distance that already felt insurmountable. When she found her voice, it came out as the most heartbroken sound he had ever heard.
"Big brother, please don't leave! Don't take my brother away!"
He gazed at her for a long, steady moment. Then, he smiled—wide, deliberate, and entirely certain. It was the exact smile he had always used to reassure her that everything was fine, that he had it handled, and that she was safe.
Don't worry, sister, he thought, projecting his feelings the way Elves sometimes could when the emotional bond ran deep enough. I will be okay. I chose this to protect you. Get stronger—as strong as you possibly can. And if you're a good girl and keep working... I promise we'll see each other again.
Seth lingered at the edge of the tree line, the heavy burden of his actions written plainly across his face before he managed to mask it. He looked down at the small, crimson-haired girl, speaking without cruelty, yet entirely without softness. It was the tone of a man who believed the hard truth was the only gift worth giving, even when it hurt.
"If you can understand my words, Elf girl, then listen well," Seth said quietly. "You have your brother to thank for your freedom. If you do not want to lose anyone else close to you... remember how you feel right now. Remember your helplessness. Blame your own powerlessness. And do not stop training until you've become someone who never has to feel this way again."
He turned away. He couldn't bear to listen to a child crying for much longer.
The mercenaries vanished back into the shadows of the forest.
The very last thing Sarai saw of her brother was his face framed by the trees—his unhesitating, bright smile—before the green gloom swallowed them up and he was gone.
She was still reaching forward long after the forest gave nothing back.
Lynnia Andross arrived at a dead run, already knowing she was too late.
A senior member of the Royal Elven Vanguard, she possessed striking silver hair streaked with black highlights, dark skin, burning orange eyes, and emerald-and-gold armor that caught the very last slants of the afternoon light. She had been close enough to overhear the final exchange, but not close enough to intervene before the young prince had made it crystal clear that he did not want to be saved. She still remembered the look he had given her right before the trees swallowed him up—that brief, decisive shake of his head. Take care of her. Not me.
Lynnia knelt down and gently gathered the trembling princess into her arms.
Sarai cried for a very long time. She wept with the complete, unguarded heartbreak of a five-year-old who didn't yet know how to hide her grief or compress it into something manageable. Lynnia held her close and said nothing at all. There were no words adequate to the moment, and she understood that a grieving child didn't need advice; she needed warmth. She needed to feel that something solid and safe still existed in the world.
Eventually, exhausted and softly hiccupping, Sarai cried herself completely to sleep against Lynnia's shoulder.
For all our sakes, Lynnia thought as she carried the sleeping princess back toward the palace while the city's distant lights began to twinkle through the trees, I pray to Udiya that you survive, Lord Odyn.
She quickened her pace.
The throne room carried its own particular weight that evening.
High King Berethon stood rather than sat—a habit he only yielded to when he was actively holding himself back from breaking something. High Queen Hyatan sat with the composed stillness of a woman who had learned long ago that a ruler is never granted the luxury of falling apart, no matter how desperately every piece of her wanted to shatter. Kneeling on the polished stone floor before them was their niece, Khanna Albanar. At eleven years old, dark-skinned and dark-haired, she already carried herself with the rigid straightness of a seasoned soldier, waiting in tense silence.
"Have you seen Odyn and Sarai?" Hyatan asked, her voice dangerously quiet. "In the last hour?"
"No, your grace. I have not."
The queen's expression shifted almost imperceptibly as she folded her hands tightly in her lap. "I see."
When Lynnia arrived carrying the sleeping princess, the entire room seemed to rearrange itself around that raw, devastating reality. Berethon absorbed the sight of his unconscious daughter—the tear-streaked face, the heavy exhaustion, and the exaggerated, careful way Lynnia held her as though she might fracture at any second. He said nothing. His jaw was locked tight.
"Where is my son?" Hyatan asked. Her tone was terrifyingly even.
Lynnia had faced brutal Elven warlords, enemy commanders, and countless situations where the wrong syllable could end her career or her life. She had remained calm through every single one. Yet, somewhat to her own surprise, she found the queen's quiet, waiting eyes far harder to meet than any battlefield adversary.
"Lord Odyn was taken by a group of human mercenaries," Lynnia reported steadily. "He gave himself willingly, your grace. To protect the princess."
The room plunged into a suffocating silence.
"Of course he did," Hyatan said softly. A complex expression flickered across her face—not quite a smile, but adjacent to one; a mother recognizing her child in an action so completely, painfully characteristic that even crushing grief couldn't entirely suppress the surge of fierce pride. "That sounds exactly like him."
Khanna was on her feet in an instant, her direction instantly set. Lynnia caught her wrist before she could take three steps toward the doors.
"My lady—"
"Commander, I have to—"
"You don't even know where they are." Lynnia's voice wasn't unkind, but it was anchored in iron. "Think. Your cousin willingly traded his freedom. If you go charging into the forest right now without information or a plan, you will only make things worse, and you will certainly dishonor the sacrifice he just made." She held the young girl's blazing gaze until the heat in it banked down to something controllable. "Think."
Khanna's shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. "I understand," she muttered reluctantly. It clearly cost her everything to say it.
"We lack sufficient information to act blindly," Berethon said, having composed himself. His voice dropped into that deep, steady register he used when functioning as a king rather than a father—two roles requiring slightly different versions of the same formidable man. "Lynnia. I want everything you can find. Who these people are. Who sent them. Where they have taken my son." His burning orange eyes settled on her with a quiet authority that required no decoration. "Whatever it takes."
"As you wish, my liege."
Khanna stepped forward, speaking with a careful precision that belonged to someone twice her age. "Your graces. There is something else we must consider. News of the heir's capture will not remain a secret for long. When word spreads through the populace..." She paused. "Our people are not going to receive this calmly. Not when they learn humans were responsible."
The king considered her words and nodded slowly. "You are right."
Hyatan looked up. "Take Khanna with you, Lynnia. She has sharp eyes and a sharper mind. Use them." A pause followed, quiet enough to hear the empty room breathe. "And bring my son home."
Both Elves bowed deeply, and then they were gone.
When the throne room had emptied of everyone save the royal couple, Berethon crossed the stone floor to his wife's side. He placed a large, warm, reassuring hand on her shoulder. She leaned slightly into it—a small, intensely private motion, entirely invisible to anyone who wasn't standing precisely where he was.
"They'll find him," he said.
"I know." Her voice was a bare whisper as she pressed her hand over his. "I know they will. I just—" She stopped, drawing a careful, shuddering breath. "He is their brother, Berethon. Sarai and the others... they need him."
"They will have him back."
She remained silent for a moment. Then, reaching for the worn leather-bound book resting on the table beside her, she opened it. Berethon reached out with her, and together they turned to the familiar passage that had been read aloud in Albanar's royal household through times of hardship for as long as anyone could remember:
Be anxious for nothing, but by prayer and petition, come boldly to the throne of light. Cast your cares before Him, for He bears them for you.
Hyatan read the words once, quietly to herself. Then she closed her eyes. "He is in Udiya's hands now," she murmured. "That is... enough. That has to be enough." Another breath followed, slower this time, releasing the jagged edges of her panic. "We will be strong. For our people, and for the rest of our children."
Berethon pressed his lips briefly, tenderly, to the crown of her head.
"Yes," he said simply. "We will."
Somewhere in the dark belly of a ship cutting through the void between worlds, Odyn Albanar lay flat on the cold steel floor of a cargo hold and breathed.
He had been beaten. There was no softer way to put it. His right eye was covered by a rough linen patch, the socket beneath it throbbing with a deep, nauseating pulse where a blade had caught him. His nose had been broken, his clothes torn, and his arms and face mapped with cuts and bruises that flared anew with every shift in position. A high fever had set in rapidly—the result of blood loss, he reasoned with the detached calmness of someone who had long since learned to think through physical agony. His chest felt heavy and constricted, his breaths drawing with far more effort than they should have.
At some point, he realized someone had gently cleaned and bandaged his wounds.
At some further point, he realized the fever had broken.
He lay perfectly still, listening to the muffled symphony of the ship around him—the deep, rhythmic mechanical hum of its sublight engines and the distant murmur of unfamiliar voices—and thought entirely of his sister's face. The way she had reached out for him through the trembling trees. The way she had cried.
Don't stop, he had told her. Get stronger. As strong as you can.
He hoped she would. He firmly believed she would.
He let his heavy eyelids close.
I'll find a way, he thought with absolute clarity, the certainty settling deep into his chest like a final anchor point before sleep consumed him. Whatever this place is, whatever they want from me—I'll survive. And someday, I'll go home.
He slept.
When he finally woke, the ship had stopped moving.
The hold's hydraulic door hissed open to reveal a young man roughly close to his own age: black hair, tanned skin, and dark eyes carrying an unmistakable expression of deep guilt and discomfort. The boy wore dark samurai armor over a blue haori, with a purple-hilted katana strapped neatly to his waist. He looked at Odyn the way someone looks when they desperately want to offer comfort but can't find a single appropriate word.
His name was Alan Kyocera.
Alan escorted Odyn up through the labyrinthine corridors of the ship and out into the open air. There, waiting at the top of a grassy hill, stood the mercenary leader—Seth Kyocera, clad in dark blue armor, his dark hair threaded with silver. Seth wore the profoundly unhappy expression of a man who had spent considerable time resenting every single choice that had led him to this exact moment.
"I'm sorry," Seth said without preamble. "If there was any other way out of this, I would take it."
Odyn studied him quietly for a moment. "I believe you."
The older man looked genuinely surprised—perhaps by the words themselves, but more likely by the absolute steadiness with which they were delivered. Seth stepped forward to secure the iron chains around Odyn's wrists, his movements far slower and more careful than strictly necessary, as if the deliberateness itself could serve as a form of apology.
"The Shogunate is holding my family hostage. I can't defy their orders," Seth muttered, his voice low and tight. "The man currently in charge... he wanted an Elf. Said he'd find a specific use for you."
Odyn offered no reply to that. He simply filed the information away under things to act on later—the mental category where he stored everything he couldn't immediately control.
Seth made a harsh sound deep in his throat, something hovering right between a sigh and a curse, before giving Odyn a gentle nudge forward. "Come on, then. Up the hill."
Alan moved to walk silently on Odyn's other side, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the dirt path beneath his boots.
"It doesn't matter," Odyn said quietly, causing both mercenaries to glance sharply at him.
"You've been kinder to me than anyone else here," Odyn added simply. "Whatever comes next, that means something. You don't need to feel sorry on my behalf. I made my choice, and I intend to see it through." He lifted his chin as they finally crested the summit of the hill.
Sprawled out below them in the fading, golden light of the late afternoon sat a breathtaking metropolis. Tiered roofs of dark slate, winding cobblestone streets, and paper lanterns just beginning to flicker to life along canal-side walkways stretched into the distance. Temples and ancient pagodas rose above the sprawling city with the unhurried dignity of structures built to weather the ages.
"Welcome to Kyoto, Japan," Seth said softly.
Odyn stared out over the vast expanse.
He had never seen anything remotely like it. The architecture bore no resemblance to his home—no pale stone walls, no green-shingled spires of Xenia, no wide, sweeping courtyards sheltered by ancient Elven trees. This city was constructed from entirely different materials, built on entirely different principles, and shaped by entirely different hands. It was foreign to him in the specific, disorienting way that beautiful things often are: impossible to casually dismiss, and impossible to translate into anything he already knew.
He filed that away, too.
Survive first, he thought, locking his jaw. Understand later.
The path leading down into the bowels of the city was steep, and rough hands were waiting at the bottom of it.
The underground slave auction was illuminated by flickering oil lamps that cast a low, amber glow across damp, weeping stone walls. The air was close and stale, heavy with the accumulated musk of too many bodies confined to too little space for far too long. Heavy iron cell doors lined the narrow corridor, and behind their bars, pale faces—small, gaunt, and wide-eyed—watched without hope or particular surprise as the new arrival was dragged past.
Odyn looked at them. He had never witnessed malnourishment like this before. Not in children this age, who wore it plainly in the hollows of their cheeks and the sharp angles of their collarbones.
His heavy cell door slammed shut behind him.
He stood in the center of the small, desolate space for a moment, taking it all in. Cold stone floor. Damp stone walls. A barred window set far too high for anyone to see through properly. The amber light from the hallway cut thin, rigid stripes across the ground.
Seth and Alan lingered just outside the threshold.
"I promise we'll get you out of here," Seth said, though he couldn't quite bring himself to look Odyn directly in the eye. "Just hold on."
Alan opened his mouth to speak, choked on the words, and finally settled for something raw and honest: "You shouldn't have to go through this. I hope—someday—we can be friends."
Odyn studied them for a brief moment. A shadow crossed his face, stripping away the blank, unbroken composure he had maintained ever since the forest—something younger, softer, and unguarded, there and gone in a single breath.
"Go," he said quietly. "Before you get into trouble on my account. You've already done more for me than you ever had to."
Seth nodded grimly. He placed a heavy hand briefly on his son's shoulder, and the two of them turned, walking down the long corridor until the swallowing darkness took them.
And then, there was only Odyn.
He stood very still in the profound silence.
For a long time, he simply breathed—in and out, deliberate and steady, utilizing the measured breathing rhythm his father had taught him for moments when the reality of a situation outweighed human endurance. Slowly, he crossed the small cell, sat down with his back pressed firmly against the cold stone wall, and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.
Outside the thick walls of the prison, the sprawling city of Kyoto moved on entirely unaware that he existed.
He closed his eyes.
I'm alive, he thought. That's enough for now.
Holding onto that single, vital fact as carefully as shielding a fragile candle flame against a rising wind, the young Dark Elf prince finally let himself fall asleep.
End of Prologue
Next: Chapter One — Slave?!
Hey guys, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. This is an original story that I have been working on for quite some time and i'm curious to know what you guys think of it. Leave a comment or PM me of your thoughts on the story so far. This story tells of how a young dark elf overcomes hatred and racism from other people through his adventures. Kind of a rough beginning for our main character, but things will progress. Stay tuned to find out what happens next to Odyn. That's all for now and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this original story going forward.