4 - Morgraves
Cassian
Phineas was seething. His irregular features seemed to deepen under a mask of rage, his wild eyes fixed on Tariel as he tried to maintain a dignified posture.
“Hand over the elf, Cassian!” the prince ordered in a shriek. “Hand him over to me so he can pay for the crimes of his race, for all the Morgraves who burned because of him! I will personally carry his head to Caelendor as a warning to their damned Council!”
The tension became palpable. Around them, the Morgraves’ guards closed ranks, while a hiss of dark, suffocating magic began to slither out of Phineas’s gloved fingers.
Cassian took a heavy step forward. His towering frame blocked the younger man, almost erasing the elf from the prince’s field of vision. His face was set in stone, but his azure eyes had hardened.
“No.”
A murmur of disbelief passed through the mercenaries. Phineas, outraged, gripped his mount’s reins as his face contorted into a grimace of pure hatred.
Sensing disaster approaching, Cyrus quietly approached Cassian.
He placed a firm hand on his shoulder and whispered-yelled, “What the hell are you doing, boss? Just hand over to the elf. He’s just another arrogant honey-licker—not worth risking our necks against a prince’s army! Let him die—who cares?!”
Oh, if only you knew, Cyrus… he thought, his jaw clenched.
Tariel was no ordinary prisoner. He was the sign, the signal Cassian had been secretly awaiting for two long centuries of mourning and exile.
This naive elf was the bearer of one of the last Elven Crystals still active in this world.
Deep within his own chest, Cassian constantly felt the Philosopher’s Stone stirring, vibrating with wild energy, seeking to resonate with the other magical artifact.
There was no way he was going to hand him to that cursed family.
Cassian would do everything in his power to bring Tariel safely to Drakensyl.
There, amid the ruins of his past, he would harness the combined power of the Crystal and the Philosopher’s Stone, he would trigger the Primordial Convergence.
Phineas moved his horse forward a step, pointing his sword directly at Cassian.
“You dare say no to me, mercenary?” the prince spat, his neck straining. “You’re refusing royal orders for a mere piece of elven flesh?”
Cassian held the man’s gaze, a smirk playing on his lips—icy and provocative—as he stretched his lips. “I’m not refusing anything, my Prince. I’m merely protecting my livelihood, and I’m afraid you can’t afford that particular piece.”
Discreetly, Cassian slid a hand toward the dagger at his belt. In a movement invisible to the others, he pressed the blade against his own palm.
The pain was only brief.
With the tip of his bloodied index finger, he quickly traced three alchemical symbols in the palm of his hand, binding the essence of the elf’s magic—accumulated through his bonds—to a transmutation formula.
Clenching his fist, he mentally projected this raw energy toward the elf bound behind him, who inhaled sharply, as if taken by surprise.
A thin, translucent film enveloped Tariel, vibrating with residual heat. It was all he could do to shield him from the outside world while the elf was deprived of his own magic—and Cassian was beginning to regret his initial decision. If the elf had been able to fight…
No. If Tariel had been able to fight, he would have fought them without a second thought. He was an elf, after all. A councilor’s son.
“Excedo Carnem.”
The moment the whisper passed his lips, a second protective spell formed a shield around each of his traveling companions.
Immediately, Cyrus, Erkan, and the others dismounted their horses and transformed.
The cracking of bones gave way to a pack of massive wolves that immediately surrounded the elven prisoner, forming a wall with their bodies.
They had probably realized that Tariel was valuable.
Good.
Cassian then grabbed his own sword. As soon as his fingers closed around the hilt, the gemstones embedded at the top of the pommel glowed with an intense radiance, reflecting the latent power of his magic.
A dull thud echoed through the air. Phineas had just dismounted from his horse and was advancing across the cracked ground, seeming eager to engage in battle.
“That spell doesn’t allow you to protect yourself, does it? What are you trying to prove, Cassian?”
The mercenary didn’t answer. He stood facing him, motionless, rooted to the ground. The first blow sliced through the air with ferocious force. Phineas charged, and Cassian parried the blow in a deafening clang.
Quickly, the duel turned vicious. There was no nobility here: Phineas fought dirty, feinting at the throat and delivering low kicks to knock Cassian off balance.
The prince was taller, broader, and larger, but Cassian made up for it with draconic agility, dodging the attacks with fluid, experienced footwork.
Cassian circled his opponent, his eyes scrutinizing Phineas’s stance with cold, analytical precision—he was too slow, too confident. The insolence in his gaze held a promise of defeat that the prince was burning to fulfill.
“Aren’t you going to attack? What will it take to make you lower your guard?” Phineas spat, furious at his inability to land another blow.
But that rage was briefly replaced by a smile that would send a chill down the spines of even the most seasoned fighters.
Suddenly, the prince’s free hand shot toward Tariel.
A necromantic spell began to warp the air, treacherous and venomous—such was the true nature of the Morgraves corrupted by Malveth.
But the moment the spell took shape, Cassian raised his bloodstained palm, the one marked with alchemical symbols, and a wave surged from his hand, absorbing the dark magic mid-flight to prevent it from reaching the elf.
The effort was colossal, and Cassian staggered under the force of this unnatural energy that momentarily coursed through him. It was the one moment when the dragon’s guard faltered.
Taking advantage of the opening, the prince’s sword sliced across Cassian’s side. The fabric tore, sending warm blood spurting onto the parched earth. Where his blood flowed, the earth seemed to regain its color, and grass began to sprout in small patches.
Cassian gritted his teeth, stifling a pained groan.
Ignoring the burning sensation from his wound, he immediately raised his blade to parry another downward strike that threatened to split him in two.
The gems on his sword shone with a blinding brilliance under the force of the impact and his muscles trembled under Phineas’s power, but with his gaze locked on the prince’s, Cassian held his ground.
Without giving his opponent time to react, Cassian landed a vicious punch to the prince’s stomach, causing him to drop his sword and the mercenaries to hold their breath.
Phineas stumbled back, clutching his stomach with a grimace.
“Now that’s a surprise. We’ve both lost.”
The soldiers stepped forward to gather around their prince, and Cassian retreated toward his own companions, clutching his side tightly. His body was struggling to close the wound, which worried him.
Something wasn’t right.
When Cassian tried to step back, he staggered, and a sadistic laugh rang out from the enemy’s side. His limbs grew heavy as Cyrus, in his human form, rushed to his side to support him.
“Cassian, are you okay? Why aren’t you healing?!”
“I can’t… Damn it… I don’t know what’s happening to me—”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” the prince interrupted, looking smug. “My blade is poisoned. You’ll lose consciousness soon, and I’ll take you with me on a delightful journey.”
Down on one knee, Cassian fought against the darkness engulfing his vision. He snapped his fingers weakly before touching his wound to collect some blood and draw an arc and three alchemical symbols on the ground.
“Cyrus! Go away! Leave Tariel—go away!”
“What..?”
“Leave!”
The very moment the last symbol was drawn, a shockwave sent the army and the wolves reeling. Cassian knew it: despite his impending unconsciousness, as long as his heart kept beating, Tariel’s body would be protected by his magic.
Cassian finally collapsed to the ground. Cyrus whistled the retreat, abandoning Tariel to the enemy, but the elf was enveloped in an impenetrable warmth.
The mercenary knew the Morgraves and Phineas’s immense pride well.
The prince knew full well that bringing back to the castle a mercenary capable of absorbing necromancy and an elven mage would make him the prodigious heir, restoring a semblance of hope to his fallen kingdom.
They were in grave danger.
Tariel
The emotional roller coaster that followed could have—and should have—killed him.
It all started with doubt.
He didn’t have an army.
Tariel was alone in the face of what awaited him, in the face of the dangers that seemed to cling to him. Why hadn’t he been entitled to an escort?
While this thought had initially been driven by his ego a few weeks ago, it now bordered on despair.
Yes, that’s what it was: the elf was doubting.
Next came fear.
Tariel was, in fact, terrified. Cassian had no known reason not to hand the elf over to the prince standing before them. In fact, he has more to gain by selling me on the black market, he thought.
Power, a title… Who wouldn’t want that? Wait… Did Tariel actually have a title? He was a mage—a mere mage, the son of a counselor—shut away in his elven city. Of course, he didn’t have a bloody title.
If he wanted to escape, now was the time… But the elf was rooted into place.
Eventually, it was anger that flooded the elf’s wounded heart, which seemed periodically enhanced by a magic that was not even his own.
At that moment, he hated the man lying unconscious on the ground.
He hated him with every fiber of his being.
He hated that heat, that magic he knew nothing about, but could feel all around him.
Cassian was going to die, and he would take the elf with him.
He felt powerless. Vulnerable and pathetic.