Chapter 12
The soft glow of moonlight bathed their carriage, casting long, fractured shadows across the dusty timber wheels. Without Rayyan Bartos to accompany them, the Solv household pushed onward through the night, keeping to their steady, unyielding pace. Eventually, they passed beneath the great gates of Valcreat—towering monoliths adorned with ancient, faded runes and heavy iron plates—as a chilly night breeze swept across the path and the horses' hooves struck a steady rhythm against the starlit stone.
"Darling… are you tired?" Damnern murmured softly from across the cabin, his voice carefully controlled as if afraid of startling the children.
Elina shook her head, a gentle weariness softening her green eyes. "Just a little. It has been a long day."
"I'm sorry… for making you and the kids endure all of this," Damnern said, his silver gaze carrying a rare trace of genuine guilt.
Elina offered a reassuring smile. "There is nothing to apologize for. That is your responsibility now. Besides… Willowess needs you."
"So Papa doesn't fight bad people anymore?" Eldern piped up from his seat, his youthful curiosity cutting through the quiet carriage.
Damnern paused for a fraction of a second before answering. "If Papa has to… Papa will."
In the corner, Elyra had been sitting entirely silent, her blue eyes staring blankly out the reinforced window as though her mind had drifted far beyond the physical world. Without realizing it, her lips parted slightly, and a single, heavy word slipped from her tongue.
"Colosseum…"
Hearing the whisper, Elina glanced over with a soft, reminiscent smile. "You know, your papa was actually a Colosseum champion when he was eighteen."
Damnern let out a dry cough, raising a single eyebrow. "Ancient history," he muttered dryly. "Nowadays, Papa's primary battlefield is paperwork."
"That's not impressive at all," Eldern complained, his nose wrinkling in disappointment.
Elina gently reached out to flick her son's cheek. "Don't talk like that. Your papa works hard to protect countless lives."
Elyra remained silent, merely observing the domestic exchange with a distant, unreadable expression.
Moments later, the carriage slipped past the border and entered the sprawling expanse of the Valdwess Forest. The road narrowed sharply, the ambient moonlight swallowed whole by a dense, suffocating canopy of ancient trees. The surrounding atmosphere plunged into an eerie, suffocating quiet, punctuated only by the rustling of dark leaves, the distant, mournful calls of nocturnal beasts, and the hollow crunch of gravel beneath the tires—a stark reminder that they had left the safety of civilization behind.
Elyra's mind began to drift inward, heavy and numb, as if the reality outside the wooden walls had dulled into a distant hum. The rhythmic creak of the axle, the faint scent of old leather, even Elina's warm presence beside her blurred into the background.
Then, the world shattered.
A microscopic shift in the pressure of the air—sharp, violent, and utterly unmistakable.
Before conscious thought could even take root, Elina moved.
There was no hesitation. No delay. It was raw, terrifying instinct born of a mother's absolute devotion. Elina's arm shot across Elyra's small frame, wrenching her violently away from the window in a single, fluid motion. Twisting her body, she threw herself over the toddler, shielding her completely within the protective cage of her arms and chest.
Reality snapped into agonizing clarity a fraction too late.
Hiss.
A vicious whistle tore through the air, piercing the exact spot where Elyra's head had rested a heartbeat prior.
An arrow.
It punched clean through the carriage wall, grazing past Elina's shoulder so closely that Elyra felt the sudden, terrifying displacement of air and the instant, rigid tension in Elina's muscles as she braced for impact.
For a split second, time froze entirely.
Pressed flat against Elina's chest, Elyra's small hands instinctively gripped the fabric of her mother's dress. Her wide, unfocused eyes caught a sudden flash of movement through the narrow gap beneath Elina's arm.
Out there.
Damnern.
He stood at the absolute edge of the chaos, his bare hand closing around the shaft of another arrow mid-flight—having snatched it out of the air a mere inch away from piercing Elina's spine. The heavy metal tip still trembled violently in his iron grip, humming with the residual force of the shot.
Yet, relief was entirely absent from Elyra's mind.
Her gaze locked onto the weapon gripped in Damnern's hand, and something fundamental inside her fractured.
I didn't sense it.
Not even a flicker. Not a whisper of intent in the air.
Trapped inside this fragile, two-year-old vessel, she had been rendered completely, utterly blind. No apex instincts. No preternatural awareness. Zero capability to react to an incoming kill-shot.
Nothing.
The realization struck her with the force of a falling mountain, hurting far worse than any arrow ever could. Her mind, conditioned by years of surviving as a ruthless shadow assassin, buckled under the sudden, suffocating weight of sheer helplessness.
A white-hot wave of self-loathing surged through her chest. She despised it. She hated the pathetic weakness of this body, and she hated the sickening realization that she had been a dead weight while someone she cared about nearly bled out right in front of her.
Why… why couldn't I feel it coming?
If Damnern hadn't intervened a fraction of a second faster—
Mama would have...
The terrifying, unfinished thought crashed violently against her consciousness. Elyra's small fingers dug into Elina's clothing until her knuckles turned bloodless. A stifled, miserable sob caught in her throat, muffled instantly against her mother's collarbone. She loathed feeling like a liability. She loathed the bitter truth that the people sheltering her had to risk their lives just to keep her breathing.
Unaware of the psychological storm raging inside the child in her arms, Elina gently stroked her blonde hair, her voice a steady, soothing anchor.
"I've got you, sweetheart," Elina whispered, pressing her face against Elyra's head. "You're safe now… nothing is going to touch you."
The result of my years of training just disappeared in this fragile body.
Yet, safety was the farthest thing from Elyra's reality. The external ambush frightened her far less than the terrifying cage of her own powerless flesh. She could only stare past Elina's shoulder, her gaze fixed on the heavy, oppressive aura bleeding in from outside.
It was unmistakable. The raw, terrifying presence radiating from Damnern was heavier than anything she had ever encountered. It pressed against the cabin like an atmospheric anvil, making her tiny lungs seize and her muscles lock in involuntary panic.
It felt sickeningly familiar. It carried the same suffocating, soul-crushing weight as Ferwel Noxes' malice—an overwhelming domain of absolute force that didn't even need to swing a blade to make a mortal feel like dust underfoot.
"Ambush! We're under attack!" a guard's voice roared from outside, cutting through the stillness of the forest.
"Form up! Protect the Count at all costs!" another bellowed in reply.
Clang! Clang!
The sharp, earsplitting shriek of steel colliding echoed through the trees, plunging the exterior into a violent cacophony of blood and chaos.
Beside them, Eldern gasped in sudden terror, and Elina instinctively pulled him into the protective embrace as well, her arms wrapping tight around both children.
"It's alright, Eldern… stay close to Mama," she urged, her voice remaining miraculously calm despite the mounting peril.
Near the front of the cabin, Damnern let out a low, cold breath. A faint, humorless smile touched his lips, though his silver eyes blazed with sub-zero homicide.
"Stay here for a moment," he said quietly.
With measured, deliberate calm, he pushed open the carriage door. But the exact microsecond the heavy wood swung outward, his physical form simply vanished from existence.
Outside, the forest exploded into roaring violence.
"Keep pressing the attack! Break their formation!" the raider chieftain bellowed, his voice shaking the canopy as dozens of masked cutthroats surged out of the dark underbrush under the moonlight, weapons raised high for the kill.
Ten elite royal guards stood resolute in a battered semicircle before the armored carriage. Their shields were splintered, their armor dented, and their breath coming in ragged gasps, yet their eyes burned with an unyielding wall of discipline.
Another sharp whistle sliced through the night air. An arrow found a gap in the defense, driving deep into a guard's shoulder and sending him crashing backward into the dirt with a strangled cry of agony, dark blood instantly staining the moss.
The remaining nine guards gritted their teeth, locking their shields tighter in a desperate bid to hold back the screaming, bloodthirsty tide.
And then, death arrived without a sound.
"H-Huh?! What the—?!"
A hulking raider at the front of the charge froze mid-swing, his eyes bulging in sheer incomprehension as his comrade's head suddenly detached from its shoulders in a high-pressure geyser of crimson. The severed head spun through the air, hitting the dirt with a sickening thud, its expression permanently frozen in uncomprehending shock.
To be Continued...