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I cradle the last of our hope in my trembling hands, aware that every breath I take might be the final one in this cursed land.

My sisters and I stand at the edge of a smoldering battlefield.

Dust clouds the sky, turning the evening into a blood-soaked twilight, and the once-fertile plains outside Orthani lie ravaged beneath the tyranny of dark elf forces.

My heart thunders with each passing second as I scan the horizon for stragglers—any purna who might have survived this massacre.

We have lost too many, and the final toll of that realization weighs on me like a physical ache.

I sense the agony pulsing through our coven’s bond: the tears from those who remain behind me, the tremors in their bodies as they wait for my command.

We never intended to fight a war, yet the moment we realized these elves saw us as prime targets for enslavement or extermination, the notion of peace slipped from our grasp. Now, the only choice left is flight, though we pay an unimaginable price for it.

Wind lashes through my hair. Magic stirs around us in a swirling gust, carrying faint sparks of raw energy that dance across the scorched earth.

I close my eyes, inhaling the metallic tang of blood and the stench of decaying spells.

Each breath is an invocation—I plead for enough strength to save what remains of our people.

Far behind me, Sister Lyris murmurs an incantation meant to conceal our footprints.

She stands unsteadily, her robes splattered in grime.

A bright slash of arcane light glints around her palms, and I whisper an encouragement under my breath, reminding her to steady her focus.

She tries, but the tears in her eyes betray her heartbreak.

In the distance, black silhouettes move in eerie formation.

Dark elves in obsidian armor comb the wreckage for survivors—or trophies.

They are tall, imposing, some wielding chaos magic that distorts the air with violet tendrils.

I can taste their malice on the breeze, and every muscle in my body clenches with dread.

The group of us—perhaps two dozen living purna—press our backs against the jagged remains of a shattered wall.

The city of Orthani looms to our south, its spires bathed in the dim glow of enchantments fueled by cruelty.

Smoke drifts across the fields. I see flickers of hungry flames devouring what used to be farmland, turning it into a wasteland of scorched husks and ash.

No sign of the humans. Days ago, we watched them fall before the elves’ unstoppable assault.

The memory makes my stomach twist in anguish.

I recall their pleading eyes, how they reached for us, desperate for salvation we couldn’t provide.

Every time I blink, I see it: the clamor of a thousand screams, the taste of defeat, the reek of burning flesh.

I clutch a slender staff carved from a shard of ancient oak.

Its tip glows with the last vestiges of protective magic I have left.

A single incantation pulses in my mind—a final measure if we’re cornered.

It is not safe. The energies coiled in that spell defy everything we know, a chaotic weaving that may devastate friend and foe alike.

But I keep it close, because I will not allow our kind to be slaughtered outright.

“Valyn,” Lyris says softly, voice raw from chanting. “We have to move soon.”

My gaze drifts across the field, searching for an opening.

The elves seem distracted, engaged in rounding up any final pockets of resistance.

My breath grows thin as I recall how, not three days ago, we believed we might negotiate peace.

We had illusions that we could reason with them.

A fool’s dream. They wanted power, they wanted to harness purna magic for their vile ends, or else see us erased.

“Gather everyone,” I command, keeping my tone low yet firm. “We reach the ships at dawn, or we die on this soil.”

Lyris nods, disappearing into the throng behind me to spread the word. I summon the courage to face forward again.

The land scorns us, or perhaps mourns us.

Cracked earth where streams once flowed.

My sisters and I used to coax flowers to bloom with a gentle hum of life-magic.

Now I can hardly sense a single seed in the ground, everything stripped bare by the elves’ devastation.

We purna pride ourselves on channeling the Source for creation, not destruction, yet we’ve been forced to scorch fields and break minds just to survive.

I blink back bitter tears and step out from behind the wall. Each footstep feels like a vow: We will not cower any longer. This crossing is our last stand before exile.

As I move, I sense a ripple in the air—a malignant presence that rakes over my spine.

My chest tightens. I spin around, staff aloft, to see a dark elf figure stepping from behind a smoky outcrop of rubble.

He stands easily seven feet tall, clad in black scale-like armor, pointed ears framing a face carved by cruelty.

He lifts a hand wreathed in crackling purple light. “You thought you could hide from us, purna?” His voice slithers across the distance, every syllable a sneer.

My throat constricts. Around me, a handful of my sisters brandish rudimentary staves or daggers. They look tired, even the bravest among them trembling with exhaustion. I grit my teeth and hold my ground.

“You’ve done enough,” I say, heart pounding. “Let us leave. You have Orthani, you have your blood-soaked conquests. We want no more of this war.”

He laughs, a hollow sound that resonates over the field of dead. “You’ll leave? And rob us of your magic? We are not finished with you. Now kneel.”

My staff pulses in my hand, and a swirl of red arcs from its tip, swirling around my wrist before snapping back.

Danger floods my senses. I recall the twisted expression on the elves’ faces when they tortured my kin.

I feel the memory of my mother’s final scream in the wind. And I know if I yield, we are lost.

“If you want us,” I say, voice emerging with more steadiness than I feel, “come and claim us.”

For a terrifying moment, the night stands silent. Then he lunges, hurling a spear of chaos energy that shrieks past my head and slams into a purna behind me. She crumples instantly. Sister Kalii, one of our younger acolytes. My heart spasms at the cruelty.

I roar wordlessly. Magic ignites in my blood, hotter than I’ve ever felt, a raw current that surges beneath my skin. I twist my staff. Gleaming tendrils of arcane force lash out, coiling around the dark elf’s aura.

He tries to laugh again, but the sound dies in his throat as my enchantment tightens around him, forging a luminous chain. His eyes flare with fear. “What have you?—?”

He never finishes. The wave of chaotic power, laced with all my rage, crushes him in a flash of bright, twisting light.

He collapses to the ground, limbs petrifying.

My own mind reels— this is no ordinary spell.

My sisters scream behind me, and the air crackles with an echoing resonance that I can’t control.

I see the dark elf’s silhouette quake, then flesh hardens, peeling away to reveal something beyond mortal skin.

It’s as if the magic is warping him, creating a monstrous shell where once a tall man stood.

Jagged stone forms around his limbs. His face twists into an unrecognizable shape, jaws locked in silent agony.

Revulsion seizes me. This is not what I intended. My chest constricts even as I feed the last threads of power into the binding. When the glow fades, the shape that remains is no longer a dark elf but a creature of stone with vestigial wings, trembling in the moonlight.

He stands, or tries to. His eyes hold a savage emptiness, as if all memory of his old life has been severed. My mouth turns dry.

“Valyn!” Lyris’ voice cuts through my horror. “We have to leave, now.”

Over my shoulder, more elves emerge. Some see the mutated figure. Their howls of shock echo across the night. I can hardly understand what I’ve done, but I sense their fury rolling across the plain in a tidal wave.

A frantic decision grips me. “We run,” I say, forcing the words out. “To the ships, now.”

We break into a desperate sprint, weaving through broken walls and flames. My sisters heft the wounded onto litters made of battered cloaks. The crackle of spells fizzles behind us, near-misses that scorch holes in the ground. Each new thunderous blast threatens to end us.

The night stretches on forever. My lungs burn, and every step jars my body with reminders of battle.

But slowly, we make it beyond the shattered farmland.

The terrain opens into rolling grass—withered, but better than the wasteland we left behind.

There, beyond a distant ridge, wait the few ships we have built in secret.

I sense pursuit. The dark elves are not so easily deterred by one monstrous transformation.

But their confusion buys us a sliver of time.

The sight of that petrified soldier must have rattled them.

And I realize—fear crawls through my veins—that the magic I wielded might extend beyond that single elf.

If the rumors are correct, I have potentially unleashed an entire brood of stone fiends.

Kalii’s limp form weighs heavily in Lyris’s arms. My steps falter as we check for signs of life.

Kalii’s eyes remain closed, breath faint.

I kneel beside her briefly, pressing my palm against her chest, flooding what remains of my healing magic into her body.

Her eyelids flutter, but she does not wake.

I whisper a vow, promising that I will not let this sacrifice be in vain. Then we rise again, forging a path to Prazh, to an uncertain exile.