Aziz
They slipped through a patch where the trees tangled around ancient stones, roots gripping so tight they split the boulders clean in half.
She vaulted onto the boulder, silent. He dropped beside her, close enough to feel her anger.
Below, in the gutted cathedral's nave, golden-armored elves lounged among sagging tents. Beyond the broken altar, neat rows of black soil glittered with star-fruits: heavy, faceted, glowing like captive galaxies.
Humans in rune-chained rags harvested them. When one stumbled and bruised a fruit, an elf's vine-whip sang. The crack of it echoed up the stone ribs of the ruin.
She breathed a single, furious word.
Down in the moss-eaten church, the bronze bell tolled once. The slaves bent faster.
He squinted, voice rough with disbelief.
"What in the deep green's name is this?"
Her palm settled on the boulder.
At once, pale leaves and tiny star-white flowers pushed through the cracks beneath her touch, blooming wild around her fingers.
Voice low, shaking with pure, cold rage:
"They're farming it.
The Staryu."
He turned to her, his brow knotted tightly.
"And they're breaking every law of root and rot to do it. You said it was extinct.
A myth."
Aziz's voice dropped, suspicious and sharp. "How do you know the protocol for something that shouldn't exist?"
She stared down at the glowing rows, her voice flat and cold as winter iron.
"I tried to burn the whole field down once. It didn't take."
A soft double rasp of bone on leather. Aziz glanced over.
She had drawn them: two crescent swords carved from some enormous creature's ribs, white as moonlit snow, their edges catching starlight that wasn't there a moment ago.
"What are you doing,Saliva ?" he barked.
She had two arcane bone-bladed daggers out, slender and perfectly curved.
"We'll make the plan as we go," she said, and a terrible, wild grin split her face.
"That's life, Aziz. It's always changing, and right now, it's about to change for them."
Before Aziz could curse her recklessness, she launched herself off the rock with the violence of a sprung trap, plunging into the dark.
She landed hard in the clearing, knees bent, the twin bone-bladed daggers flashing into a deadly reverse grip.
With a predatory grin, she threw her head back and let loose a primal roar so fierce it seemed to claw at the very bark of the surrounding trees.
The royal guards froze, With a sickening hiss-click, the hilts they grabbed sprouted extended, crystalline blades, doubling their reach instantly.
A curse ripped from one man's throat, and another hissed, "She's back!" A third, clearly an officer, barked a single, savage command: "Kill her!"
She blitzed forward before any of them even registered she'd moved.
A wild, uncontrollable laugh tore out of her as the world slowed around her speed.
The arcane bone-blades flashed—silver nightmares carving through flesh and armor.
Guards screamed.
A woman's voice cracked the air. "Silvia!"
The name exploded.
Baskets fell. Slaves surged to their feet, shouting it raw and wild, "Silvia! Silvia!" until the ruined cathedral trembled with it.
Silvia caught the returning crescent blade, eyes cold on the rifles lifting toward her.
"Miss me?" she said, soft as frost.
Another spun as she tore through his ribs.
A third stared in disbelief at the stump where his arm had been.
She skidded to a stop in a spray of mud, still laughing like the violence was a game only she understood.
"She's too fast!" one of them shouted, fear cracking his voice.
She caught his eye above her, grinning wide, breath trembling with adrenaline.
"Is this what we can do?" she shouted, almost laughing. "I will never—never—be powerless again!"
His smile vanished. Jaw clenched, he pointed past her.
"Behind you."
She spun. Three guards crashed through the trees, boots thudding over roots, hands snapping upward.
They struck first—
one spat a tongue of flame,
another cracked the air with lightning,
the last hurled a wall of wind.
Fire scorched the ferns. Lightning split the branches. Wind tore through leaves and needles.
Aziz's roar erupted—deep, beastly, echoing through the trunks. The forest itself seemed to flinch.
The elements collided in midair, bursting apart in a violent tangle of fire, sparks, and shredded leaves. Ash and needles rained down.
The guards stiffened, eyes wide. Blood trickled from their ears.
For a breathless moment, they stood frozen among the trees—silent, pale, haunted by something primal in that sound.