Elnor stood on the deck of the ship. She pulled out her pocket watch, watching the caliber work. As soon as the hand reached the third-hour mark, she called out. “Full speed ahead.” A visioner was currently present on each ship, and they relayed her message to each other. The water and air elementalists worked together to push the vessels forward towards Palu. Luck was on Ronan’s side tonight as the moon was missing under the current night.

The destroyers formed a line in front of the carriers, their new weapons already prepared. The lights from their incoming ships alerted the city guards of their presence. Palu’s alarm bells rang, and the Akar navy rushed to deploy their ships. Caught by surprise, most of Akar’s navy was not present. As the hand on Elnor’s watch reached the fourth-hour mark, Elnor issued her command. “Fire!”

Five of their new cannons fired. They were similar to Akar’s earlier cannons, weaker but had farther range, and were more efficient in size. Small enough that they can fit them on a boat. Red and yellow fireballs launched straight towards the city of Palu. Elnor saw bright trails forming over the ocean, like glowing golden bridges reaching from her ships to the town. She could hear the screams of the citizens as they hurried to evacuate. The fireballs burst above the city, exploding into blinding lights that lit up the dark sky.

Thanks to the light, Elnor could see the visioners and elementalist on Akar’s ships preparing to attack. Akar only had thirty vessels available, and most of them were carriers. ‘Good,’ Elnor thought. ‘Lead them away.’ She waited for the enemy ships to move in further into the sea. “Destroyer one to fifteen,” she finally ordered. Ronan’s destroyers fired at the incoming ships. Out of range of the enemy sorcerers and cannons, Akar’s only hope was that their sorcerers would be powerful enough to divert the incoming fireballs. They were not strong enough, however. Hence, enemy sorcerers took to the sky, and the water elementalist dove into the sea. Those left behind had no choice but to accept their inevitable cessation.

The first wave of Ronan’s navy’s fireballs landed on the enemy ships, followed by another and then another. The fire, burning whatever remained off of the enemy ships, lit like a bonfire. Some of Akar’s non-sorcerers tried their luck in the ocean, but their fate was already decided.

“Air and water elementalist,” Elnor said. Ronan’s air and water elementalists, equipped with multiple power stones, left the carriers and took to the sky and seas to meet the survivors. Some of Akar’s sorcerers tried to make it back to the city, but most of them were not powerful enough and fell into the ocean out of exhaustion. Outnumbered and too far to make it back to shore, Akar’s surviving sorcerers chose to engage the incoming Knights of Ronan. They were slaughtered. Dead enemy sorcerers fell like droplets from the sky.

Elnor waited for her elementalists to return to the carriers before issuing her next order. “Fire at the city.”

“Are you sure there had been enough time?” Nevan, who had stood behind her, asked.

“It’s all we can give them,” Elnor replied and nodded to the visioner to relay her orders.

Nevan just stared at the city, saying nothing else.

Ronan’s destroyers fired. This time the golden bridge did not burst into light before it reached its target. Barrage after barrage landed on Palu. The once-bustling city turned into a field of smoke and fire.

“Air elementalists and visioners. Go.” Thousands of Ronan sorcerers took to the sky, all equipped with their new arsenal. They flew high, much higher than they would have dared to without the power stones. As they flew above the city, they cracked the power stones they had carried and dropped them. Out of Palu’s artillery range, the defenders in Palu could not do anything but watch the falling rocks. Some hit their target, straight onto the guard towers and other defensive outposts, while others missed their mark. Wherever the cracked power stones landed, an explosion occurred. Once they ran out of power stones, the sorcerers landed outside the city walls, joining General Ahri’s knights that had been waiting there.

“Forward,” Elnor ordered. Her armada sailed towards the city, the water elementalist pushing the ships at full speed. As they got close, the sound of battle grew louder. Once Ronan’s ships landed, the knights immediately dispatched and joined the fight. Elnor’s boat was the first to reach the shore; she and Nevan immediately disembarked and ran towards the city walls on the south, opposite of the ocean.

They ran through the streets, followed by the rest of the army. Peacebringer cleaved any enemy survivors that were stupid enough to get in Elnor’s way. Her army moved fast, swooping through the city. Two squadrons of her knights split apart from the main army at every point where there seemed to be a cluster of enemy soldiers, just like they had planned. The squadrons that had split encircled the enemy knights, creating large pockets where the Ronan knights would surround the survivors. Most of the surrounded Akar knights immediately surrendered once enclosed. Those that had continued fighting were unable to defend themselves from all sides and were cut down.

Elnor was the first to reach the south walls. She had left her squire behind, who was unable to keep up with her pace. She saw Ahri and friendly knights battling the enemy that had survived the initial bombardment. The General was already slowly winning, but with the added reinforcements that Elnor had brought, they swooped through the remaining guards. It took less than ten minutes for them to secure the southern walls. Once secured, Ronan’s earth elementalists immediately started repairing the damaged walls and erected new ones where needed. Deep trenches were also quickly formed in front of the walls. They needed to create a strong foothold in the port city. Having control over Palu would allow Ronan to land their troops directly on Akar, forcing Akar’s advanced army to withdraw or take the risk of being cut off from their homeland.

Once the battle for the southern walls was over, Elnor made her way to General Ahri, who was talking with Commander Yenel. Nevan, who have had also joined the fight, followed behind her. They were all covered in blood and ash. “General Ahri,” Elnor saluted. “Commander Yenel,” she nodded to the visioner.

“Commander Elnor,” Ahri nodded. Elnor was no longer leading the navy, so she was referred back as Commander instead of Admiral.

Commander Yenel, who had traveled with Ahri’s small army through the land, also greeted Elnor. “Commander Elnor,” said Yenel.

“Elnor, I need you to handle the civilians and prisoners,” said Ahri.

“What would you like me to do with them?” Elnor asked.

While the three sorcerers discussed, Nevan watched the rest of the knights transporting the cannons from the ships and placing them onto the walls. A rainforest surrounded the city, and the tall trees must have had made it easier for Ahri and her knights to stay hidden while they waited for the navy. He reckoned that Palu was once a section of the forest cleared out to allow Akar access to the ocean. There must have been an abundance of clay and water in the area; all the buildings were bricks, unlike Ronan's stones. Fortunately for Ronan, bricks could not withstand bombs of overloaded tenaga.

“Ishan, let’s go,” Elnor said to Nevan as she made her way into the city.

Elnor watched the civilians make their way out of the underground chapels from the temple of Garuda. There were more of these temples scattered around the city, each with its own underground halls. She saw the civilians making their way out with their gaze facing down. Children and the elderly were being carried by their guardians. Many children cried when they saw what had happened to their home, while the adults just stared emptily, too shocked to realize that their child needed comforting.

Elnor had seen worse while walking through the streets, however. Along with the knights that were not needed to handle the walls, she had cleared out as many dead as they could find before allowing the civilians to resurface. The condition of the bodies that they had uncovered was horrendous. Children with their heads crushed under fallen ruins and charred men and women with their limbs missing. She felt more sorry for those that survived; little of them had been unscathed, and most would either be forever crippled or deformed.

Elnor expected herself to feel sick when she found those bodies. She knew she had gotten used to the sight and smell of dead soldiers, but she had not known that she was now used to dead civilians. It was her order that had caused them to die, but she had felt nothing as she uncovered them. She continued to watch the civilians. The knights had formed a barricade around them, leading the civilians in an orderly line towards the empty park in the city's center.

“Commander!” a fellow knight, pointing at the sky, shouted at Elnor.

Elnor turned to face where the knight was pointing. A red flare had been fired towards the sky, and it came from they had imprisoned the surrendered Akar knights. Nevan was there, Elnor realized. He had told her that he did not want to see the civilians, so she had assigned him to guard the prisoners. The sound of battle from that direction grew louder, and she could see streams of different elements shot out to the sky.

“You, you and you,” Elnor pointed to the three closest knights. “Follow me. The rest stay here.”

Elnor reached the prison camp, where the small battle was still taking place. It used to be a wet market, but they had cleared it and used it to hold the prisoners. The non-sorcerer prisoners used anything they could get their hands on as a weapon, while the sorcerers engaged in elemental and psychic battles. She ran towards an augmenter who was eight feet tall and armed with a broken pipe. The enemy augmenter readied himself, but without a proper weapon and no armor, he stood no chance against Elnor. Elnor ducked the recklessly swung tube and stabbed her blade through the man’s torso. The man’s upper body was sliced into two as Elnor swung her sword upwards.

“Commander!” Nevan called out to Elnor as he ran towards her. Both his hammers were covered in blood.

“Ishan, report,” Elnor said while decapitating an enemy flame elementalist.

“The ones with the red cross on their foreheads started it, but the rest soon followed,” he replied as he hammered the head of an incoming prisoner.

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

Elnor nodded and then shouted. “Kill all the prisoners!” She could not show mercy to the prisoners. Although the prisoners were outnumbered and out-armed, they might just win if they started the mutiny under different circumstances. Besides, the prisoners only had themselves to blame. Her squire did not question her order and continued to slay the prisoners.

It did not take long for all the prisoners to be slain. Some tried to surrender again, but there were no second chances given. After the bloodbath had ended, the field was covered by the dead. The smell of blood and defecation reeked the air. Most of the deceased were prisoners, but Ronan had also suffered a few losses.

“What happened?” Elnor asked Nevan as they watched the knights removing the bodies. She had placed him in charge of the prisoners while she oversaw the civilians.

“We were doing a headcount and had arranged the prisoners in rows of ten. An earth elementalist attacked one of our knights while he was counting. As soon as the first attack started, the other prisoners, with a red cross on their forehead, immediately joined in. We were caught by surprise, and the rest might have thought they had a chance. One of our knights fired the red flare, and not long after, you came.”

“Did any of the prisoners escape?” asked Elnor.

“No. Exactly eight hundred sixty-four dead. Three prisoners with the red cross on their forehead tried to, but they never made over ten steps outside the market.”

“Good,” said Elnor. She began to walk back towards the city center. “I’m going to check on the civilians. I leave the rest to you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Nevan saluted. As soon as Elnor had gone out of sight, he took off his helmet. He checked the back of it, examining the dent. “Damn, earth elementalist,” he muttered. He shifted his gaze towards the knights that were carrying the dead. Deceased allies’ were placed carefully on a cart, while the dead prisoners were thrown into a large pit. Once all the prisoner’s bodies were collected in the mass grave, oil was poured inside. A flame elementalists lit a spark and set the bodies on fire.

After the mass cremation, Nevan made his way back to his tent. He passed his way through a collection of tents where the civilians that recently lost their homes resided. It was late into the night, and the line for the evening stew had lessened to a few hundred. Nevan was not hungry and walked towards the healer’s camp instead. There were a few large tents, and he randomly chose one and entered. There were a few wounded soldiers inside, sleeping on mats with regeneration stones strapped to them. The single healer inside was fast asleep on her chair. Nevan recognized her. “Sura,” he said, loud enough only for her to hear.

“Who’s injured?” Sura jolted and immediately asked.

“Nothing nasty,” Nevan calmly replied. Sura stared at Nevan’s appearance, slowly recalling his features. She recognized him; Nevan could tell. “Ishan,” he said to her.

Sura closed her eyes and sighed, “Sorry, I,” she paused. “It’s been a long day.”

“I reckon,” Nevan also said with a sigh.

“You lost a lot of weight,” she whispered.

Nevan smiled solemnly, “Yeah.”

“What do you need?”

“I got a knock on the back of my head. Could you please check on it?”

Sura nodded and stood up from her chair. She gestured for Nevan to take a seat. He sat, and Sura stood behind him, examining the wound. “Any dizziness or blurry vision?” she asked.

“No,” he said softly.

“The wound isn’t fresh, so it's unlikely you’ve had a concussion.” Sura took one of the lamps nearby and placed it in front of his eyes. “But we can’t be too confident.” Nevan saw the clotted blood on her fingers. “Everything seems fine,” she removed the lamp. “Just give me a moment, and I’ll shut the wound completely.”

“Don’t bother wasting your tenaga on me,” Nevan shook his head.

“It’s fine,” Sura replied. “I’m still far from exhausting myself.” She placed a hand on the back of his head. Nevan did not move; he was unable to. He felt his breathing grow shallow and rapid, his heart pounded in his chest, and a cold sweat began to exude from his pores. Sura must have had noticed the sudden change and removed her hand.

“Please, I insist,” Nevan said between breaths, facing the ground.

Sura looked down at him from where she stood. She did not ask why, and neither did she try to protest. “I understand,” she said. “Let me bandage it then.”

Nevan nodded.

Sura began to pad the wound with a cloth gently. Nevan felt the sting of the alcohol. “Sorry for the trouble,” he apologized.

“Don’t be. It’s nice to see a familiar face.”

“Have you heard from the others?” Nevan was the first to leave the barracks and thus had not known them for long. But they had been kind to him.

“Khan and Zanya are dead,” Sura answered apathetically and started to wrap Nevan’s head with a bandage. “Don’t know where. I just heard the news from their superior’s new squires. Yokine and I were the last ones to leave headquarters and lived with them for a bit.”

“I see. Are you a full-fledge healer now then?”

“Yes, in name and rank only, though. They had to rush all the healer’s education. Due to war and all that you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” The tent was silent. Only the light snores of the sleeping patients and the two’s whispers filled the room. “Any news about Yokine?”

Sura gulped. “Yokine is missing in action,” she muttered hastily.

Most likely dead, and Nevan was sure Sura knew it. But he did not try to correct her.

“It has not even been a year since we all last met,” Sura said solemnly. “But it felt like a lifetime ago.”

“Time flies when you’re bombarded with traumatic events day after day,” Nevan said shakily.

“Tell me about it. All I see day after day are the faces of the dead and those in agony,” Sura spat. She bit her tongue to stop herself from speaking further.

“How are you, Ishan?” she asked as she tied the knot of the bandage.

“Bad,” he said to her. “You?”

“Same as you.”

The room fell quiet. Sura had finished and pulled out a second chair and sat next to Nevan.

“I won’t compare what I’ve been through with what you probably have had to go through,” Sura said.

“We all have our own battles,” muttered Nevan.

Sura nodded. “These people,” she gestured towards the patients. “They need to rest. Yet they’re going straight back to battle when demanded,” she sighed.

“The world always demands more and more from us,” Nevan agreed.

“It does. I can heal the body, but I can’t fix the mind.”

Nevan did not say anything. He simply stared at the wall of the tent as it shifted due to the wind.

“Yet we have to persevere,” Sura continued. “Persevere until we break or die.”

‘Persevere,’ Nevan repeated in his mind. “Sometimes I wish I was dead,” he said.

Sura just nodded at his words.

They were quiet for a while until Nevan eventually stood. “It’s been nice meeting you, Sura. But I think it's time I leave.”

“It had been nice seeing you too, Ishan. I’ll see you when I see you.” It was the goodbye one gives to another when neither is confident that there will be a next time.

“And I’ll see you when I see you,” Nevan said and left the healer’s tent.

Elnor rested in her tent. It was nice to be back on stable land, not the constant rocking on a ship. The army’s main priority right now was to reinforce the city’s defenses while they waited for a messenger from Akar. It had been a long day. No, it had been a long year for her. She extinguished the last candle in her tent and went to sleep.