Not long after, they returned to the main room with quiet, dangerous movements. Their looks were no longer those of grateful guests but of predators who had just found their prey. Quickly they drew their weapons and trained them on Thalric’s family.

  “Stand up! Don’t resist and don’t panic!” Geoffrey ordered sharply.

  Thalric and Lirael rose slowly. Their faces remained calm, but their bodies were taut. “Everyone be calm,” Lirael said softly, her voice like a breeze among ancient trees. “What do you want? Food? We can give you everything.”

  Geoffrey sneered, his eyes shining with greed. “We want all your valuables. Your coins—platinum, gold, silver, even copper. Hurry, hand them over.”

  Little Thalion looked panicked. He gripped the dagger his father had given him; his breathing was rapid, yet he remained rooted to the spot. Thalric exhaled and steadied his son with a strong hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Calm down, Thalion.” Then he looked at Geoffrey, cold and measured. “We’ve lived here a long time. We have no valuables— not a single copper coin. Take whatever’s here, but don’t expect gold, let alone platinum.”

  Geoffrey stepped closer; his sword was now a finger’s breadth from Thalric’s chest. “Then what do you have?” Lirael stayed composed and simply pointed to the table where she kept her healing herbs and potions. “There are many medicines and herbs there. You can sell them. That’s all we have. Take everything, then go.”

  With a sharp nod, Geoffrey ordered his men to take the goods. They ransacked the table, filling their sacks with anything that looked valuable. The house was so quiet that only the faint creak of the hearth could be heard, mingled with Thalion’s heavy breaths as he fought to control his fear.

  As they prepared to leave, William—who had seemed uneasy earlier—suddenly grinned, as if he had just realized something far more profitable. “Brother,” he said, glancing at Geoffrey with intent in his eyes. “This haul isn’t much. Even sold, maybe fifty copper coins. But look at that elf woman.”

  Geoffrey turned, an eyebrow arching. “What are you thinking?”

  William’s grin widened, greed filling his face. “I heard in Myranthia that forest elves used as night workers fetch one silver coin for a night. But someone as beautiful as her—three, maybe five silver. Imagine what the brothels in Myranthia would pay. A hundred gold coins, I bet.”

  Silence swallowed the room. Geoffrey’s gaze changed—no longer a petty thief hunting loot, but a hunter who’d just discovered his quarry was far more valuable than he’d thought. Thalric clenched his fists, jaw hardening. “This is all we have. There’s nothing more to give. Outside there are two horses—take them and go.”

  Geoffrey stayed still, his eyes fixed on Lirael. “What about your wife?” he said softly, stepping toward her with the certainty of a possessor. He raised his hand; his rough fingers brushed Lirael’s cheek with a repulsive gentleness. “She’s an enticing elf.”

  Thalric held his breath. Hearthlight threw harsh shadows across his strained face. He raised his hands in surrender, trying to calm things. “Please, go. Take everything, but do not touch my wife.”

  But Geoffrey’s men closed in, heavy, threatening steps. Their swords rose, steel points aimed at Thalric’s chest, forcing him back into the corner. Geoffrey’s eyes never left Lirael. Slowly he leaned in, as if to kiss her lips.

  Lirael drew a deep breath. And just as Geoffrey’s lips were about to touch hers— “RUN, THALION!” she suddenly screamed, her voice cracking like thunder tearing the night sky.

  The room exploded. Like a storm striking without warning, tension shattered into utter chaos. Thalric moved faster than a shadow, his body lunging like a hunting wolf. With a brutal motion he collided with the man who’d leveled his sword at him, smashing the man’s face with a blow that sent him crashing to the floor with a heavy thud. Lirael raised her hands; a streak of golden light flared from her palms, exploding in a blinding dazzle that made the bandits groan and recoil, their eyes burnt by the sudden intensity of magic.

  Thalion ran from the house as fast as he could, breath ragged. Once outside, his body froze at the sound of battle roaring within. Clashes of steel rang—metal biting metal, mingled with cries of pain. Magic flashed through the window, throwing wild shadows across the house like unseen spirits witnessing bloodshed.

  Inside, Thalric seized the moment of chaos. With reflexes honed by years of war, he ripped a sword from one of the staggered bandits. With one sharp stroke he split the man’s chest; blood poured, soaking the wooden floor. Lirael’s eyes now burned like emeralds set aflame; she raised both hands. From the floor, roots as thick as giant serpents erupted, whipping and lashing with a will of their own. They seized two bandits at once, coiling with irresistible force. Their screams echoed as thorns tore flesh and crushed bone; the sickening cracks filled the room.

  Reynald saw this and charged at Lirael, his sword raised high. But Thalric moved faster than death. He parried Reynald’s blow with a loud ring, then swung with full force. Reynald tried to defend, but Thalric was a warrior who had endured far meaner fields. With a killing movement he drove his knee into Reynald’s leg, bending it at an unnatural angle. As Reynald fell to his knees, Thalric swung his blade at the man’s throat—one clean cut—and Reynald’s head fell to the floor with a silent, dreadful thud.

  But the victory was brief. Geoffrey, though wounded by the blast of Lirael’s magic, still stood. He snarled like a hurt beast, eyes blazing with burning hate. With a roar he lunged at Thalric with unexpected force, attacking with the desperation of a man who has no choice but to fight to the death. Thalric parried, but Geoffrey drove his sword into Thalric’s shoulder, leaving a gaping wound. Thalric gasped; blood flowed from his wound, yet his hand remained steadfast on his blade.

  Lirael, though her body weakened from the ceaseless welling of magic, refused to yield. She lifted her hands again and whispered in a tongue older than the world. Cold wind whirled through the room, carrying the scent of damp earth and drifting leaves, as if the Tenebris forest itself had risen to protect its own. With her final incantation she created a flash stronger than before. Geoffrey was hurled back into a table, shattering the wood into splinters. Blood dripped from his mouth; his breathing was ragged, but hatred still burned in his eyes. Yet for the first time there was something else there: fear.

  Six bandits remained. Two had died by Thalric and Lirael’s hands, but four still fought desperately. Their breaths were heavy, their eyes wild, though fear began to creep into them. Thalric, exhausted yet upright, blood dripping from his wounds, kept his gaze as sharp as steel. Two bandits who’d freed themselves from Lirael’s roots lunged at Thalric. One swung a sword toward Thalric’s head, but with agility at odds with his weary body, Thalric ducked and countered with a brutal slash to the bandit’s thigh. Flesh split, blood spurted, and the man fell, howling. Meanwhile, two other bandits aimed for Lirael; their eyes gleamed with rage mixed with fear. Lirael raised her trembling hands and drew on her last reserve. With one final motion, roots burst from the wooden floor, sprouting like black spears. One bandit screamed as a great thorn pierced him, groping the air before he fell lifeless. The other evaded and closed in, but before his blade could strike, Thalric slashed his belly with a single, fierce swing. The man convulsed, eyes bulging, then collapsed—life extinguished in an instant.

  Only Geoffrey and William remained. Geoffrey lay sprawled on the floor, his body trembling from blood loss. Gaping wounds marred his arm and chest; his breaths were ragged, yet his eyes still radiated burning hate. William, on the other hand, still stood unscathed. From the start he had not joined the fray; he had let others face the deadly fight while he observed. He was no coward—he was a patient predator, waiting for the right moment. Seeing Thalric and Lirael panting, their wounds bleeding, William stepped forward, his smile calm, sword raised, eyes gleaming with triumph.

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  Lirael, though weakened, tried to raise her hand, but William was faster. In an instant his sword plunged into her flank. Fresh blood gushed, staining her green gown. Lirael staggered, eyes searching for Thalric, but her strength waned. Thalric roared, his fury erupting like a volcano. He charged William with every ounce of power, but Geoffrey, with the last of his strength, shoved him roughly, slamming him into the wall. A loud crash reverberated; Thalric choked, tasting his own metallic blood.

  Lirael fell to her knees, trembling violently. With the remainder of her energy she intoned a final spell—a thick mist rose from the floor and crawled like a living shadow, obscuring the entire room. William stepped back a pace, his eyes widening as darkness began to swallow his vision. Outside, Thalion stood rigid, watching flashes of light and the silhouettes of combat through the window. The clash of swords, cries of pain, and hisses of magic echoed through the cold night. He wanted to run inside, but his feet were rooted; his chest felt crushed by a great stone. Then the voice came. His mother’s voice.

  “THALRIC!” Her scream tore the night like lightning splitting the sky. Thalion froze, his body trembling; instinct screamed to run, but fear bound him. Another cry followed—his mother again—this time a sound of wrenching pain. His blood turned cold. He could not wait any longer.

  Gripping his dagger tightly, he moved toward the door. Each step felt like a thousand weights pulling him down. Hearthlight still flared inside, casting dancing shadows on the outer wall like dark spirits mocking him. His heart hammered as he pushed the door, and the scene before him shattered his world in an instant. His father lay on the floor, motionless, his body devoid of life. The bright blue of his father’s eyes was now empty, reflecting the flicker of the hearth. The air in the room smelled of pooled blood—iron mingling with burning wood and drifting ash.

  Thalion stood like stone, his breath cut short. The world around him blurred; the once-resounding battle sounds became a distant, unreal echo. His body wanted to run, but his legs felt numb. His gaze fixed on his father’s lifeless form, then shifted to his mother slumped weakly against the wall. Lirael still lived, but life flowed out of her through the wound in her belly. Her trembling fingers pressed at the wound in a futile attempt to hold back time. Each breath she drew grew heavier. Yet her eyes still shone—not with magic, but with the courage she kept for her child.

  In the center of the room Geoffrey lay broken, writhing—not in resistance but in a fear that now wrapped him. The arrogance that once filled him was gone; he now looked fragile, dying in his own blood. But William still stood upright, untouched. From the beginning he had not truly fought; he had waited for the moment to finish them. His cold smile widened as his gaze fixed on Lirael. With a casual motion his bloody hand reached out, grabbed the woman’s green dress roughly, his lascivious stare full of lust and satisfaction. Thalion’s world collapsed in an instant. His fear morphed into something wilder: fury.

  “You filthy elf whore,” he spat, voice full of scorn, “If you hadn’t resisted, look around—you’d have your husband dead, my men all dead, Reynald dead, Geoffrey’s brother gravely wounded. I’ll make you suffer more; your last memory before you die will be being raped by the man you fed.” His words slid like venom, triumphant as if victory had always been his right.

  Lirael said nothing; her green gaze dimmed like a candle burning low. Her blood-smeared hand slowly fell to the floor, leaving a red smear on the rough wood. Her breath was ragged, barely audible. Then something inside Thalion snapped. Time ceased to crawl. All the fear, doubt, and despair that had bound him vanished in an instant, replaced by something more primal, more feral—an anger that burned like a fire rising in his chest. His small hand tightened on the dagger until his knuckles whitened. He did not think. He just moved.

  With a cry that echoed like the roar of a wounded beast, Thalion lunged at William, who was trying to violate his dying mother. The dagger plunged into the man’s side with a force no child should possess. William flinched, eyes wide with shock and pain. Before he could cry out, Thalion wrenched the blade free and drove it in again—once, twice, three times—each thrust fueled by raw, uncontrollable rage. Blood spattered, warming the small boy’s hands and soaking his clothes. William staggered, lips trembling, unable to form the words that never came. He fell to his knees, eyes bulging; his once-haughty face now held pure terror. Thalion’s dagger glowed with a strange light, heat flaring as if igniting something beyond mere fury. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, mingling with blood and the char of the hearth.

  Thalion stood trembling, breathing hard, gripped by a fear unlike any before—not of William, nor the bandits he’d slain, but of himself. He stared at his blood-covered hands, the dagger still smoking faintly. His hands—the hands that had ended a life. The world spun. His vision blurred. He didn’t know whether this was victory or something else—something darker, wilder, and far more dangerous than he could comprehend. “Mother… I… I saved you…” he whispered, voice shaking with grief and despair.

  Lirael looked at him with eyes that still shone softly, though her face was pale and ravaged by pain. “You… are very brave, Thalion,” she breathed, her voice nearly swallowed by the roar of the flames beginning to consume their home.

  Thalion crawled to her, tears streaming down his face, mixing with blood and dust. “Mother… I will heal you… I can… I can find medicine… I can save you…” Lirael shook her head weakly, a motion that cut him like a blade. Her bloody hand lifted and touched her son’s face gently, fingers trembling. “There is no time… Listen to your mother—”

  “But I… I cannot lose you… I cannot—” his voice broke like a child refusing a cruel truth.

  “Thalion,” Lirael’s voice grew firmer despite the soft moan, “you must go. Survive… and do not let anger consume you—” He sobbed, tears falling without end; his chest heaved with stifled sobs. Lirael drew a long breath, each inhalation seeming heavier than the last, as if the world refused to give her air to linger. “Forgive your mother and father… for not being able to accompany you longer… Remember all we taught you… Honor life… and—” Her voice faded. Her lips moved once more, but no sound followed. Her emerald gaze slowly dimmed. “Mother…?” Thalion shook her body in desperation, his voice splintering with agony. “Mother, don’t leave me… mother…?”

  But Lirael did not move.

  Thalion’s world shattered completely. The crackle of flames, the smell of blood and ash—everything faded into a void in his heart. He could not breathe, as if the air itself had left with his mother. Then a faint groan came from across the room. Geoffrey still lived. His breathing ragged, his body trembling from immense blood loss, he tried to crawl away, leaving smeared bloody trails on the wooden floor. Thalion rose slowly. Tears still marked his face, but something inside him had changed. The fear and sorrow that had ruled him sank beneath something darker—deeper, more primal. His gaze fixed on Geoffrey, and in that instant, every scrap of pity he once felt evaporated, consumed by a different fire—wilder, fiercer, uncontrollable.

  Geoffrey looked up at the stare and raised a trembling hand. “Forgive me… I beg you…” he whimpered.

  Thalion did not move. He only stared at the man sprawled on the floor; Geoffrey trembled, not merely from blood loss but from a deeper, real terror. The arrogance was gone; panic remained, as if Geoffrey finally understood he had faced something far worse than he’d imagined: a child. Yet the child was no longer a child. His face dirtied by blood and tears, his eyes— those eyes had lost the light of childhood.

  In a voice cold and almost a whisper that cut to the bone, Thalion asked, “Who are you, really?”

  Geoffrey swallowed, struggling for breath. “We… we’re just merchants…” The lie met only silence. Thalion knelt beside him, leaning in until the boy’s breath hit the wounded man’s face. Their eyes locked, and Geoffrey saw something worse than death—a hollow, merciless stare. Thalion pressed the dagger to Geoffrey’s wound and turned the blade slightly.

  Geoffrey screamed as pain seared him. “Don’t lie,” Thalion said softly, his voice so cold Geoffrey felt the temperature drop. “You are not merchants.” Geoffrey shuddered, wanting to deny it, but something inside him crumbled. This boy… he was not ordinary. Thalion pressed harder. “I will ask again.” The boy’s voice dropped, darker and more dreadful than any man’s Geoffrey had ever heard. “Who are you?”

  Geoffrey clenched his jaw, unable to scream further; the agony was too great. He gasped and finally gave in. “We… we are not merchants…” His voice broke; blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. “We… bandits…”

  Thalion’s stare remained empty. “So you intended to rob and kill us from the start?” Geoffrey nodded weakly, his breaths coming in ragged gasps. “Just… trying to survive…” Thalion studied him for a moment, as if weighing his words. Then he took a slow breath—not hesitation but a grim certainty. Without a word he raised the dagger and drove it into Geoffrey’s chest. He did not stop: a second thrust, a third, a fourth. Each time the blade pierced flesh, each time blood spurted into his hand, Thalion felt something strange: the fear and sorrow that had burdened him slowly lifting, replaced by something deeper, more primal. Geoffrey’s groans dwindled until there was nothing but Thalion’s heavy breathing.

  The dagger was now slick with blood; Thalion’s hand trembled, not from fear but from something newly born within him—hot, burning, and uncontrollable.

  The thud of horses’ hooves in the distance pulled him back to the present. He looked up; his eyes were no longer those of a child but of someone who had crossed a line that should never be crossed. Their house was burning, flames roaring under a starless sky. Firelight danced in his irises, reflecting a new world—a world broken and burned along with his family. The horses’ steps drew closer. He had to go. He had to survive.

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  But simply reading and enjoying this tale is more than enough—I am already deeply grateful.