It had been more than a week and a half when Akar finally sent word. They did not send it in the form of a messenger or envoy. They sent in the form of an army. It was half-past midday, and Elnor was going through the blueprints of their defenses when a loud horn blared. She left the blueprints and grabbed her armor.

“Commander,” Nevan entered her tent. They had hardly spoken to each other this last week. Every conversation between them was strictly professional. Elnor knew that she missed the friendship they had. Before it all came crashing down on both of them.

“Help me,” Elnor said.

Nevan helped fasten her armor and sword. He had no time to fasten on his plate armor and was only wearing chainmail. The pair made their way to the southern walls, where General Ahri and a few other commanders had gathered. They were watching the single clear road through the rainforest. As Elnor reached the top of the walls, she saw what the others were observing. On the other side of the road, where the rainforest ended, rows and rows of Akar cavalry began to emerge. Akar’s war drums grew louder and louder as they got closer. Akar’s army did not faze any of the Ronan commanders.

“Prepare for battle,” Ahri commanded. But before Yenel could relay the order, a large white flag was hoisted from Akar’s line.

“Should we blast them anyway?” Commander Brian snickered, wanting to ignore Akar’s request for a parley.

Ahri thought for a while, “No,” she said to her subordinate. “We’re here to be a thorn on Akar’s side for as long as possible. Not conquer them.” Ahri then raised her voice, “white flag!”

A knight on the walls hoisted a white flag, signaling that Ronan had accepted Akar’s request.

“Katas, how is the front?” Ahri asked the Commander.

“We’ve just rotated them this morning. They’re fresh and ready,” the dark-skinned Commander replied.

“Good,” Ahri said. “Keep them ready.”

Commander Katas nodded and left the walls. Not long later, four knights on horseback from Akar’s army made their way to the middle of the road.

“Elnor, Irun, and Brian. I want the three of you to come with me,” Ahri said, not turning her gaze away from the knights that Akar had sent. “Yenel will trail behind us.”

“Yes, General.” The four commanders said at the same time.

“Let us hear what they have to say.”

Ahri led the way on horseback with the Commanders she had chosen. They stopped a few meters away from the gathered Akar knights. No one from either side dismounted their horse. Finally, a knight from Akar’s contingent dismounted his horse.

“Greetings,” he said. “My name is Commander Alzam, and you must be the General of the army,” he gestured a hand towards Ahri.

Commander Alzam received neither an answer nor a look from Ahri. “Our General does not speak to a Commander,” uttered Commander Irun’s gruff voice.

Alzam did not turn to face Irun and continued to look at Ahri. The Akar Commander smiled, showing his white pearly teeth. “Of course, of course,” he cheerfully said. “Where are my manners? May I introduce you-.”

“Enough, Alzam.” A woman from Akar’s contingent cut the smiling commander off. Elnor looked at the woman. She was around her fifty’s, not as powerfully built as Ahri or Elnor, but the rest of Akar’s contingent, including Alzam, straightened when she spoke. The woman trotted and stopped in front of the smiling commander. Elnor noticed that the woman had green eyes, an unusual color. And as the wind blew the woman’s long black hair, Elnor could see an eye patch covering the woman’s right eye. “I am the General of this army,” she said.

“For what reason do you call for this parley?” Ahri asked smoothly, ignoring any possibility of a preamble.

“Let us avoid bloodshed,” the Akar general answered. “We will allow you until the sun rises to leave unmolested.”

“And what if we refuse?” asked Ahri.

“Then you will be wiped out before the sun has even begun to descend.”

“I doubt you’re that confident in your army. Or else you wouldn’t have bothered with this meeting.”

“I don’t care whether you leave or die. I care about the civilians and knights that you currently hold hostage.”

“Exactly,” Ahri said. “We hold them as a hostage. So why not ask what we want?”

The Akar general scowled and stared daggers at Ahri. “What is it that you want?” she spat.

“A peace treaty,” Ahri answered. It was a lie, of course. Ronan would never make peace with these mindless oppressors.

“We’ve tried that with your council, and I’ll give you the same answer your council gave us. I see no reason ever to make peace with tyrants and savages like the likes of you,” the Akar general spitefully said. “You have heard our terms, and that is all we will offer.”

“Attack us,” Ahri said. “And see what happens to the precious hostages.”

Both generals glared at each other, and silence washed over the group. The Akar general closed her eyes and muttered under her breath. Elnor could not hear what she was saying from this far away.

The older woman stopped muttering and opened her eyes. “You have until sunrise.”

“Than you shall see what happens to your precious civilians,” Ahri replied.

The Akar general raised her chin in defiance.“Whoever dies due to your refusal to avoid bloodshed, we will consider collateral—a sacrifice for the better good.”

“So be it.”

“You have until sunrise, Ronan. If war is what you want, then war is what you shall receive.” The Akar general turned her horse and galloped back to her army.

Ahri also turned and began to gallop back towards the walls. Her commanders followed behind her. “Then war it is,” she whispered.

Ahri sat at the round table with her commanders. She had summoned all of them as soon as she had returned from the parley. They were discussing the army’s next moves. “Yenel,” Ahri called. “Were they telling the truth? Do they really think they have what it takes to drive us out by sundown tomorrow?”

“They were,” Yenel answered from Ahri’s side. “Every word.”

“They’re too confident in themselves,” Katas said.

Ahri lit her pipe and inhaled the smoke. She would not usually smoke in front of others, but she felt like she needed it at this moment. Ahri exhaled, letting the smoke out onto the table. “Their track record would say otherwise," she said.

“Even so. The numbers my scouts brought back shows that we have a three-to-one advantage,” Katas said.

“We don’t know what new weapons they might have in store for us,” Commander Brian said for the first time since the meeting started. “We barely managed to force them to retreat at Fort Badai, and it was during the winter. We only won as we had the home turf advantage.”

The other commanders grimaced at Brian’s words. They were all present during the battle, and they had seen what weapons Akar had obtained back then. Now, Akar could be possessing deadlier ones.

“They can’t use their siege engines here. The ground is too wet,” Katas retorted, although he did not sound too confident himself.

“We’re in their territory now, Katas,” Commander Nada said. “They know the ins and outs of this place better than we do.”

Ahri watched her Commanders bicker. She waited to finish her pipe before knocking on the table with her knuckles. The room immediately went silent. “If I order this plan, how many of you will support me?” she asked. All the commanders in the room raised their hands, showing that she had their full support.

Ahri looked at the eyes of each of her commanders and took a deep breath. “I want you all to disagree with me,” she said to her loyal commanders. All the hands in the room went down. “Good,” Ahri said. “Then the court marshal shall be placed only on me.”

“General-,” Commander Rion said.

“You’re all dismissed,” Ahri cut the commander. “I’ll issue my orders in a moment.”

The Commanders rose and began to leave the room one by one. “Yenel, would you please stay for a moment,” Ahri said to Yenel before the Commander stood up.

“Of course, General,” Yenel said.

Yenel waited for the rest of the commanders to leave. While the other commanders were still present, Ahri’s face was stone cold and held no emotions. But once the last commander left and the door was shut, Ahri’s mask broke. Yenel stood and went over to Ahri. She placed the General’s head on her belly, embracing the distraught Ahri.

“I hate Miras,” Ahri shakily said.

“I know,” Yenel replied softly.

“I’m going to be a monster.”

“Never to me.”

“I’m going to be known as the most vicious general that ever existed.”

“You are going to be known as the general that’s willing to sacrifice for your people, and all your commanders know it.”

“Is there no other way?”

“I don’t know.” Yenel continued to rub Ahri’s shoulder, who had continued to rest against her.

“I’m going to despise myself.”

“Maybe you would or maybe you wouldn’t. Either way, I will be by your side through it all.”

The two did not say anything for a while as Ahri continued to lay her head on Yenel. Until finally, Ahri looked up at the Commander. Yenel saw no tears, and neither did she see any anger.

“Relay my orders,” Ahri said.

And Yenel nodded.

“Please!” screamed a man. “Don’t take her away!”

“Shut it!” shouted the knight who was carrying the man’s child out of a house.

“Take me instead! Please spare my child!”

“I said shut it!” The knight backhanded the man’s face, causing him to stumble on the floor. “You only have your monarch to blame. And don’t worry. You’ll also be joining her.” The knight signaled to her squire, who was standing outside by the house. Her squire went in and carried the man on his back.

Nevan heard the altercation on his side as he walked hastily through the city. The screams and yells of knights and civilians threatened to drown him as he raced through the town. Nevan found himself moving faster and faster as he got closer to his destination.

Nevan entered the tent without waiting for permission. “What is this?” he asked Elnor angrily, horrified by what he just saw. Elnor was standing by her desk, studying whatever the paper on her desk contained.

Elnor looked up at Nevan, and her expression was apathetic. “What has to be done.”

“They are civilians,” Nevan seethed. “Why are we doing this to them?”

“They are the same civilians that support the campaign of Akar. They are the same civilians that would happily rejoice as our country is destroyed.” Elnor’s voice grew louder. “They are the same civilians that support their tyrant as they crush the entire world!”

“Is that what the General told you to say? Is that how she justified this? Is that how you are going to justify this?”

Elnor slammed both her arms onto her desk, shattering the wooden structure into pieces. “Do you think I want this?” She yelled. Elnor met her squire’s black eyes, threatening him to say otherwise.

Nevan stared at Elnor, tongue-tied. “There are children,” he finally said.

“I know, and if Akar still chooses to attack. Then their blood is on their hands.”

Nevan only looked at her, shook his head in an unsupportive nod, and then left.

Elnor sat on the chair by the now broken table. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Elnor stood on top of the walls. Blindfolded men, women, and children stood alongside her. The civilians were bound together with chains on their ankles, and the bindings rattled as they shivered out of fear in the warm night. An Akar child was crying not far from Elnor. She tried to ignore them and watched the Akar’s camp far in the distance instead.

“Blue flare,” Elnor heard Ahri’s voice in her mind.

A blue light shot up to the black sky from the city's center, like a rising star about to join its brothers and sisters above. Not long after, bridges of golden light emerged from the ships positioned in the ocean. It screeched through the air, lighting up the night sky. The civilians squirmed under the sudden bright light and sound.

Elnor watched the Akar’s camp that was under fire from the cannons. A round of gasps came from the other Ronans, unable to believe what they were seeing. Elnor herself was caught in utter surprise and dread. “General,” she muttered in her mind as she watched Akar’s might. Every time a ball of golden flames was about to land on Akar’s position, a lance of metal rose from the ground and spread out in the sky, forming what looked like a mushroom-shaped shield. ‘How is this even possible? What other kinds of weapons does Akar have in their arsenal? How were they able to manipulate metal?’ Elnor’s mind was racing with questions, unable to comprehend the sight.

“Keep firing,” Yenel relayed Ahri’s voice. “Elnor.”

Two more blue flares were fired from the center of the city. Elnor continued to watch as the metal shields intercepted the incoming ballistics.

“Elnor!” Ahri’s voice yelled in Elnor’s mind.

Elnor snapped to attention, having for a moment lost her focus. “Aim for their camp, fire at will!” she yelled to the knights on the walls. The groan of the knights echoed as they redirected the heavy cannons, moving them to angle slightly upwards. Soon all the artillery that Ronan had possessed began firing. Elnor saw one of the lances of metal shot up from Akar’s camp, but it cracked and fell apart before it could expand. Akar’s shields were overwhelmed and had started failing. Some fireballs hit their mark, exploding and spreading flames in Akar’s camp.

However, before the barrage ended, two dozen stone pillars rose from Akar’s camp. The large stone pillars grew high into the air, almost as tall as the canopy of the rainforest. What was terrifying, however, was what they carried.

‘Cannons,’ Elnor muttered.

The pillars moved through the trees, sliding through and carving a path through the rainforest. Akar’s earth elementalist swung their arms at the base of the column, pushing and moving with the pillars. Meanwhile, an army marched behind the tall pillars.

“Katas!” Ahri’s voice yelled in Elnor’s mind, drowning out the booms of the cannons on the walls. “Don’t let the pillars get close! Nada! Rion! Get rid of their cannons!”

“Do you think they’ll really fire at us, General?” Asked Commander Irun through his mind.

“They’ll be able to fire over the walls if they come close enough! Don’t ask unnecessary questions anymore!” Ahri yelled, clearly frustrated with the current situation.

Katas’ men, who had buried themselves under the wet mud of the rainforest, began to rise. Thousands of fully armed Ronan knights appeared on the battlefield, seemingly out of nowhere. Elnor could hear the war cry of the knights as they rushed to engage their foes. Things had not gone according to plan. The plan was to draw Akar’s troops in and for Katas’ knights to ambush them.

Ronan sorcerers took to the air, flying towards the cannons on top of the pillars. Akar’s sorcerers met them in the air. Steel met steel, knives pierced flesh, elements clashed, and knights fell. Soon the falling knights began to be accompanied by falling water droplets. Some Ronan sorcerers managed to get close to the pillars, throwing their cracked power stones at the cannons. The top of the columns exploded, and the cannons above were propelled off and crashed to the ground. The power stones that missed, however, fell straight towards the ongoing battle underneath.

Elnor turned her eyes to the battle on the ground; her cannons had stopped firing, needing time to recharge on tenaga. The rainforest was dark, and the rain made it more difficult for Elnor to see from where she stood on the walls. She could only make out glimpses of moonlight that reflected on metal. The pillars began to slow down, halted by the oncoming Ronans. One of the pillars crumbled, burying the knights that were fighting in its vicinity.

“Elnor!” Ahri yelled in Elnor’s mind.

But Elnor had already begun issuing her orders before the General had said her name. The instant Elnor saw Akar’s cannons start to glow, she immediately knew what to do. “Run!” she yelled to both knights and civilians on the wall.

The knights on the walls began to run away, and most jumped, taking their chances on the possibility that the mud would be soft enough thanks to the rain. Only a few of the civilians obeyed, however.

Elnor grabbed the nearest child to her and pulled the child into her arms as she continued to shout. “The chains are brittle! It’ll break as soon as- “ Elnor was cut off as one of the blasts from Akar’s cannon struck the wall where she was standing. Elnor, still carrying the child in her arms, was thrown into the air. Out of instinct, Elnor transmuted tenaga and reinforced her body. She did not remember landing on the ground when she woke up with a ringing noise in her ears. She touched her face; it was wet and sticky.

“Elnor!” Ahri yelled in Elnor’s mind.

“Yes,” Elnor quivered.

“Are you hurt?”

Elnor did not reply immediately. “Yes,” she eventually spoke very softly.

“If you can walk, retreat for now. If you can’t, try to find cover.”

Elnor did not listen to what Ahri said, too caught up in what she was currently seeing. The child that she had carried was dead, mangled. The child’s head was crushed, and brain matter stuck on Elnor’s chest plate. They were missing an arm, and whatever limbs remained were all broken. Elnor had not positioned herself properly. She had tried to cover the blast with her back but had not repositioned herself in the air and landed on top, flattening the child against her armor. “No, no, no,” Elnor knelt and repeated, holding the limp body in her arms. She took her regeneration stone and placed it against the child. “Please, no,” she begged, hoping for a miracle to happen. “Please, don’t.” Elnor knew she could beg and deny the truth as much as she wanted. But it would not change a thing, for that she had killed the child. “Please…”

The battle continued to rage on. Ahri and Yenel watched from the top of a temple, for it was the highest point in the city. She could see the battle in the rainforest and the situation on the walls from there. Akar’s pillars had begun to retreat, but their knights continued to fight. A line of explosives exploded in the ground battle, followed by the screams of knights. The trees did not catch on fire due to the rainstorm. A bright blue light flashed in the rainforest. And it was followed by another and another.

“Katas, Nada, Rion. What was that blue light?” Ahri asked. She did not receive an answer immediately. “Can anyone tell me what that blue light was?” she asked again.

Commander Katas was the first to reply. “Lightning, General,” he said. His voice was slow and strained, clearly still in the middle of an intense fight or possibly injured. “They’re sorcerers aren’t normal, General. I’m not sure, but I think some of their elementalists can also manipulate metals.”

Ahri did not answer, thinking as fast as possible to determine the situation.

“We’re going to get slaughtered here, General!” Katas groaned urgently.

“Retreat,” Ahri immediately replied to Katas.

“Unable. They’re going to cut down our backs.”

“Then hold on, Katas. Irun, Ryuji. Go and relieve Katas’ forces,” Ahri ordered her Commanders through her mind. She turned to Yenel, who was standing behind her. Ahri spoke out loud this time. “Let’s go.”

In the air, the knights had taken their battle into the canopies; the thunder made it far too dangerous to be in the high altitudes. Knights moved through the trees, clashing with each other under the shadow of the branches. The Ronan knights were slowly gaining air superiority, the power stones making them more effective in the prolonged air battle.

In the sea, the Ronan had reached a stalemate with Akar’s navy. Akar’s ships had come out of the shadows, using Ronan’s cannon barrages to hide the noise of their movement. Akar’s sorcerers had frozen the water and threatened to capsize Ronan’s navy. Numerous Ronan master water elementalists had sacrificed themselves, surrounding Ronan’s navy with numerous giant whirpools and preventing the ice from spreading close. The only exchange between the two sides was that of cannon fires. And whenever the cannons from both sides had to recharge, an uneasy peace took place.

On the ground, Katas wrestled an enemy knight on the wet mud. He climbed onto the knight’s back and smothered their face into the ground. His blade had been lost somewhere in the field, and he was fighting with whatever weapon he could find. A lance of metal shot at him from an enemy knight. The knight had fired it from her missing left arm, Katas noticed. The enemy knight stuck her stump into the ground, and Katas rushed to her before she could transmute tenaga. The knight pulled her half-formed metal arm off the ground, but Katas had gotten to her first. He broke the knight's neck.

“Katas. We’re here,” Katas heard Ryuji’s voice in his head.

“Tell all your knights to cover themselves in mud. It will make their lightning elementalists less effective,” Katas said.

An enemy sorcerer fired a bolt of lightning at Katas, and it was too fast for him to dodge. It struck the mud on his chest plate, and Katas's limbs temporarily went rigid. But he was alive and unburnt. After what felt like a few seconds, he could move again. The enemy sorcerer was on all fours, having strained himself from tenaga transmutation, and his arms were charred. Katas picked up a power stone nearby where a fallen ally lay dead. He cracked the stone and threw it at the sorcerer. The sorcerer noticed and tried to crawl away. Realizing crawling was useless, the sorcerer opened his palms and slapped the stone back at Katas. However, the slap was weak, and it landed only a few steps away from the sorcerer. The stone detonated, and the enemy sorcerer was blasted backward.

“Give us a moment then,” Katas heard Ryuji tell him.

Before Katas could reply, a crackling concentrated blue light began to emerge from where the enemy sorcerer had fallen. Katas looked at the enemy sorcerer. The sorcerer’s arms were missing, and his face was deformed. His jaw, however, was what caught Katas’ attention. It was a prosthetic, and the explosion had revealed the blue crystal that made up the jaw underneath its outer layer. The enemy sorcerer slowly and painfully opened their mouth. They screamed, and Katas was too slow to react to the giant bolt that headed his way. The lightning struck Katas, and this time it engulfed his whole body. Knowing what he just did was a death sentence under this weather, the enemy sorcerer looked up at the sky. The lightning that came for him swerved through the emergents and canopies until it finally struck him.

“Katas, we’re here. Where are you?” Ryuji called to Katas through their mental link. There was no reply. “Katas?”

The ground battle still raged on when a loud horn boomed from Ronan’s side. It was the General’s horn. Ahri was standing on a low soil platform, and an earth elementalist slid her into the front lines. Ten children were chained together close to her. Both sides stopped fighting as she reached the front lines.

Ahri grabbed one of the children and placed her blade against the child’s neck. “Don’t take a step closer, and retreat,” she said coldly to Akar’s ranks. The child cried and soiled herself. The other children also started crying in fear.

Akar’s knights began to part, creating a path. The middle-aged woman walked to the front lines, accompanied by Akar Commander Alzam. The Akar knights lowered their heads as the General passed, and Alzam was no longer smiling, Ahri noticed. The Akar General marched forwards to the front.

Before the middle-aged General took a step in front of Akar’s lines, Ahri let out a warning. “Don’t take another step.” She pushed her blade closer to the child’s neck.

The Akar General did not listen and continued to stride forwards. As soon as her foot landed on her first step, Ahri pulled her blade. Blood splattered onto the wet mud, and Ahri allowed the child to fall, clutching their bleeding neck. This time the Akar General stopped.

Ahri grabbed another child. “Retreat to your lines,” she coldly said.

The Akar General glared at Ahri. The enemy General did not take another step forward, but neither did she step back. Another child fell into the mud, joining their friend, clutching their necks. The Akar General’s eyes widened in anger.

Ahri took another child and pressed her blade against the child’s neck. “I said step back.”

The Akar General stepped back, and if she was angry before, she was furious now.

Ahri knew she had won their bet. Their enemies might be cold enough to kill their civilians from a distance, but maybe not when it was right in front of their eyes. “Retreat,” Ahri said, keeping her eyes fixed on the Akar General.

“You might as well surrender,” the Akar General said. Her voice was low, but everyone could hear the hatred.

Another pool of blood splattered in the air as Ahri sliced the child’s neck. She grabbed another one and repeated her words. “Retreat.”

“How dare you?” The Akar General spat.

Ahri was about to slice her next victim, but the child spoke. “Please, priestess. I’m scared,” the child begged through her tears to the Akar General. “I’m scared.”

The Akar General stared at the child in recognition, and Ahri saw a frown that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“Until it’s dark again!” The Akar General yelled. “That’s all I’ll give you.” She was looking at Ahri, but she was speaking to the children as much as she was speaking to the Ronan, silently apologizing for she could not do anything. “You’re not going home. So say your goodbyes while you still can.”

“Good,” Ahri replied. “Retreat.”

The Akar General glared one last time at Ahri before signaling her knights to retreat.

Ahri waited for Akar’s army to withdraw before speaking to the earth elementalist. “Take us back.”

On the way back, the children, who were clutching their necks a moment ago, began to cough. The other children yelled in surprise. Ahri was not surprised, however. She had ordered them to be strapped with regeneration stones under their clothes while blindfolded. It was still a risk, for if she had cut their throats too deep, they would have died. But it was a risk that had paid off.

Nevan sat against the wall of a ruined home in a district where few people passed. The battle had ended some time ago, and the sun had begun to rise. He was covered in mud and blood from head to toe. His hands were still shaking from the after-effects of the battle. He remembered what had happened. At one point, they were pushing the enemies back, preventing the pillars from moving any closer to the walls. And the next, they were greeted with Akar’s newest living weapons. Lightning and Metal elementalists.

Nevan tried to stop his hands from shaking. They have been that way ever since the first lightning bolt struck him. They have been shivering as he dug and buried the dead body in a makeshift grave. He had searched for Elnor as soon as he found out she was missing and had finally found her weeping with a dead child in her arms.

Elnor knew Nevan was the one that had found her, and she had not needed to look. If someone were to find her, it would have been Nevan Prima. He had searched for wounds on her and had seen none. She had allowed him to remove the awry body off of her without any objection. Now Nevan sat next to her while she curled up to a ball, sobbing. Neither said anything to the other.

“Elnor,” Nevan said gently to her after some time. “The General will be looking for you.”

Elnor could not reply, as a new wave of sobs threatened to burst if she tried to speak.

“Let’s clean you up?”

Nevan waited for Elnor to nod before lifting her into his arms. He had to transmute tenaga to raise her, he realized. The weight he had lost had made him much weaker. He brought her into an abandoned home with a working water pump nearby. He sat her down on one of the stools and went to fill the water buckets. Elnor did not move while waiting for him to return. Nevan unbuckled the straps of her armor and removed her helmet, revealing her red hair. He tenderly wiped her face with a wet cloth, removing the blood and specks of dust. Next, he slowly unbuttoned her tunic and trousers, removing the blood-soaked clothes off of her. He wiped her body, lifting her arms and legs one by one. He paused on her left thigh. There was a scar there, where he once had cut the noble thief. It felt like a distant past now, Nevan realized. He did not pause for long and shortly continued to wash her.

“Thank you, Nevan,” Elnor whispered once her squire had finished.