He swept both hands in a wide arc. A wall of fire rose before the hunters, but Rethan struck the ground with his spear. The flames tore apart like cloth, shredded by an invisible shockwave.
The pressure around Calen increased. The air vibrated. His spells cost more—every spark of mana demanded tremendous effort.
He inhaled deeply.
Very well.
They had prepared a ritual to weaken him. They had brought a general. They had chosen the place and the moment.
Good plans.
But they had forgotten one thing: he was Calen, captain of the guard and the kingdom's finest warrior.
"To me!" he bellowed to his men as he drew his sword. "Protect the carriage!"
Driving his blade into the ground, Calen sent a pulse of mana toward the runic circle. He wasn't trying to destroy it—only to disrupt it enough to slip through.
Then he lunged straight at Rethan.
The two hunters sprinted toward the carriage. An arrow—shot from who knew where—shattered the small window. Eleanor screamed and curled up. The horses, terrified, reared. One, already wounded, collapsed, pulling the whole harness sideways.
The carriage slid off the road toward the slope, where the forest opened onto a rocky descent.
Eleanor tumbled, hitting the wall, crying out Calen's name.
Outside, the captain clashed with the general, unable to spare more than a heartbeat for the hunters. He wanted to end the duel quickly—he needed to reach Eleanor.
Rethan summoned lightning. The sky, silent until then, split open. A massive bolt struck where Calen had been standing.
But he was already gone.
He had leapt forward, tracing a crude symbol beneath his feet—a displacement circle, rough but effective. The world blurred, then he reappeared several meters away, sword raised.
Calen's blade was no ordinary metal. Blue runes covered it, pulsing with his heartbeat.
"You've grown old, Rethan!" he shouted as he struck.
The general parried with his spear in a thunderous clash.
"And you carry too many responsibilities," Rethan replied. "I can feel it in your mana. You're stretched thin—like an overdrawn bow."
The violence of their weapons rippled through the air. With every impact, the trees quivered, leaves falling as if swept by invisible wind. Blue and black arcs of energy tangled, clashed, devoured each other.
Calen did not see the carriage fully tip over, nor Eleanor climb through an opening in panic. He did not see the two hunter-mages vault over the shattered barrier, escaping the soldiers' line of sight, pursuing the girl as she fled into the forest.
He sensed only one thing: at a precise instant, a fragment of his awareness noticed an absence.
The absence of the luminous heart he always felt nearby—the magical presence of Eleanor, linked to his through an artifact.
Her mana was moving away.
Fast.
Too fast.
"No…"
Rethan smiled, cruel.
"You see? You cannot protect everything. Even when the only thing you had to protect was right under your eyes."
Calen roared.
He let loose a part of his power he had held back. The runes on his sword blazed, nearly white. The ambient mana, despite the ritual cage, rushed toward him like air into a wildfire.
The ritual faltered. The black lines in the forest trembled. Rethan's brow furrowed.
"You'll burn yourself, Calen."
"Not before you."
The next clash was different. No longer a controlled duel—it was a collision of storms. Spear and sword met in a blinding flash that silenced the battlefield for a heartbeat.
When the light faded, Rethan was on one knee, spear planted before him. His armor smoked. Part of his arm was simply gone, consumed.
Calen was still standing, panting, pale, drenched in sweat. But not unscathed—his armor was streaked with burns and cuts. His mana flickered dangerously.
The Kaldorians hesitated.
"Retreat," Rethan snarled, voice shaking with rage. "We have what we came for."
Calen froze.
They have her…?
But signals flared in the sky—red streaks calling for withdrawal. The Kaldorians began to fall back, covering their general's retreat.
Calen took a step, ready to chase, when something else swept everything aside.
A breath.
No wind. No sound.
A pulse of mana.
A wave so dense, so alien, his body screamed. It was as if the world had inhaled… then exhaled violently toward the forest below.
Where Eleanor had run.
It wasn't Rethan's magic. It wasn't Elyndor's. It wasn't… anything known.
Rethan turned pale as well. His eyes darted to the same direction as Calen's.
"What is…?"
For the first time, the Kaldorian general looked truly uncertain.
Calen did not stay to see more.
"With me!" he shouted to his remaining soldiers. "Those who can still fight, formation! The rest: secure the road and tend to the wounded!"
He ran, ignoring the pain dragging him back to reality. He left behind the battlefield, the enemy general, the forest scarred by spells.
Only one thought remained:
Eleanor.
The princess had been running for what felt like an eternity.
Her feet slipped on stones, her lungs burned, her heart hammered so hard she thought it might burst. Branches whipped her face, snagged her cape—she tore it off without stopping.
Behind her, she still heard footsteps. Two men. Fast. Determined. They didn't shout. They didn't speak. They weren't merely following her—she felt, without understanding how, that something was closing around her. Like an invisible hand reaching for her.
Twice she stumbled, and twice she rose again through sheer panic. Twice something brushed past her—a strange sensation, like a thread of magic missing her by a breath.
She thought of Calen. Of his order not to leave the carriage. Of how he had shouted her name amid the chaos.
I'm sorry…
A rocky outcrop appeared, a break in the hillside. At its base, a dark opening in the stone—almost invisible behind a cluster of bushes. If she hadn't slipped at the last moment, she wouldn't have seen it.
She slipped inside.
The air immediately grew cooler, heavier. The daylight vanished behind her. She heard the men stop for an instant—then resume. They had seen her enter.
The cave stretched deeper than expected. Not a simple hollow: a crude corridor, shaped by time or something else, descending into the hill's depths. A pale glow emanated from below.
Eleanor hesitated.
Behind her, footsteps drew closer.
She went down.
The walls changed quickly. No longer raw stone. Something else. Blocks cut and assembled. Walls. Rooms.
Ruins.
Nothing like anything she had seen in the palace's books. The stones had impossible angles that seemed to shift when she looked away. The vaults were too high or too low depending on where she stood. Strange frescoes covered the walls, drawn in a substance that was neither paint nor metal nor stone.
Symbols.
Not human.
Not simply because she didn't recognize them, but because something deep and fragile within her whispered that they were not meant to be understood. That trying to follow them with her eyes for more than a few seconds was a very bad idea.
She discovered this by doing it.
Her gaze fell on a spiral of broken lines and shifting points. Suddenly her head spun. Her stomach knotted as if she were falling into invisible emptiness. Thoughts she had never had flashed through her mind—words in languages she didn't know, impressions of colossal shapes turning in the dark.
She jerked her eyes away with a gasp, hand over her mouth. The nausea faded, but something uncomfortable lingered.
The footsteps echoed behind her now—on stone. They had entered.