Beyond the walls, the forest sprawled dark and endless, swallowing the road that snaked out from the gates. The elves moved like whispers—quick, silent, their boots brushing the earth as if afraid to leave a mark. Five years of lives they’d stitched together—friends made, families half-begun, weddings scented with lavender and ale—unraveled behind them. They’d arrived as spies, masks firmly in place, but time had softened the edges, rooting them into the city’s pulse. Now they fled, tearing free, leaving pieces of themselves in the dust.


    An elf girl tripped, her sob slicing the quiet. “Thomas,” she choked out, a human name tangled in her throat. Her fingers clawed at the locket around her neck, knuckles blanching, as if she could pull him across the wall with her. An older elf, his face etched with secrets, yanked her arm. “Move,” he snapped, but his voice splintered, a crack in his armor.


    The leader strode ahead, his leather gloves creaking as he smoothed them—once, twice—a nervous tic from his days weaving lies in noble halls. His mind churned, a storm of rage and regret. ‘A child. One damn child.’ Aaron, that silver-haired menace with eyes like glowing embers, had shredded their world in days. A demon in human skin, they called him now, though the leader had laughed when he’d heard the boy was a slayer candidate. That laugh died fast—choked off by those eyes, that voice, the weight of a threat too real to ignore. His instincts had roared to run, to shield his people, and he’d obeyed. But the sting of retreat gnawed at him, sharp as a blade in the gut.


    “Faster,” he growled, voice tight but carrying. The elves quickened, the road stretching out like a silver thread under the moon’s cold stare. They were close—’so close’—when a shout shattered the night.


    “Captain!” An elf froze, arm jabbing toward the road. “There—look!”


    The leader’s head whipped up. There he was: Aaron, silver hair catching the moonlight like ash aglow, leaning against a tree with a grin that promised trouble. His ember eyes burned, unblinking, pinning them in place.


    Curses erupted from the elves—“That fucker,” “Piece of shit,” “Cocksucker”—a chorus of fear and fury. The leader’s hand shot up, sharp, silencing them like a guillotine’s drop. His pulse thudded, but his voice held steady, a spy’s old trick. “What’re you doing here, boy?” he called, each word deliberate. “You told us to stay away.”


    Aaron’s grin stretched, slow and wicked. “I said I’d hold off while you saved your mates. Not after.” He pushed off the tree, boots crunching gravel, casual as a predator circling prey. “After? I do what I want. Kill you, torture you, skin you. My choice.”


    The leader’s glove creaked again, fingers flexing tight. “We’re leaving. We’re done here.”


    Aaron barked a laugh, short and jagged. “Done? You think I care about ‘done’?” He stepped closer, moonlight sliding over him like a shroud. “You elves—always slinking around, playing your games, thinking you’re safe.” His voice dipped, a growl creeping in. “Well, You’re not. Not from me.”


    The girl whimpered, her locket’s chain snapping under her grip, clattering to the ground. The leader’s jaw clenched, a muscle twitching. “Let us go,” he said, low, a plea wrapped in steel. He could fight but he was carrying burden, a burden which could lay everyone death, if they weren’t careful.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Aaron—that silver-haired bastard—had torched their lives with a flick of his wrist, grinning like it was nothing. The whispers had started: ‘demon, not boy’. The leader had scoffed once, but those ember eyes haunted him now, glowing like coals in the black.


    Then it broke. Four elves—too young, too furious—snapped free from the group, their sigil knives flashing like teeth in the moonlight. They bolted toward Aaron, their footsteps a frantic drumbeat, their breaths sharp and wild. The leader’s voice ripped through the night—“Stop, you idiots!”—but it was like shouting at a storm. They were gone, swallowed by the dark, their war cries fading into a reckless, jagged howl.


    Aaron stood alone, a silhouette against the moon’s pale glare, his grin crooked and sharp. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. Six feet away, the elves faltered—their steps hitched, their bodies jerked. Then—’crack’. Their limbs sheared off, sudden and clean, blood spraying in arcs that gleamed red under the silver light. They crumpled, their sliced torsos sliding to Aaron’s feet with a soft, wet thud, momentum carrying them like an offering.


    He nudged a severed arm with his boot, nose wrinkling at the stench—copper and rot, thick enough to gag on. “You see,” he said, voice slow and lazy, “I’ve got this slave who’s halfway decent with blood spells. Not perfect, but she gets by.” A laugh slipped out, dry and cutting, like he’d told a joke only he understood.


    A grimoire blinked into his hand—pages thick, edges curling, the air around it twisting like heat off a fire. It wasn’t just magic; it was ruin, a weight that pressed down and reeked of death—something older, darker than demons. The elves froze, breaths catching, eyes wide and glassy. “Mage,” one choked out, voice trembling. “He’s a damn mage.” They’d thought him a fighter, a warrior with his powerful hands—nothing like this.


    The leader’s heart slammed, hard and fast, his relic knives heavy in his grip. Four hundred years he’d walked this earth, and never—not once—had he seen a human wield power so thick it choked the air. A boy, no less, with ember eyes and a smirk like a blade. His mouth tasted like ash, but he forced it out anyway, a shout that split the silence: “Together! We end this monster now!”


    Aaron’s laugh sliced through, sharp and cold. “Hahahahaha……You blundered,” he said, almost soft, like he pitied them. “Gave a mage prep time.” He lifted his hand, and the blood pooling at his feet rose—every drop spinning into threads, hair-thin and crimson, latching to his fingers like a puppeteer’s strings. He waved once, a casual flick, ember eyes flaring bright. That was it.


    The elves charged, and the strings cut through them like whispers—silent, swift, final. They dropped, bodies flopping to the ground in pieces, a grotesque heap of meat and bone under the moon’s uncaring stare. The air stank of blood and silence.


    Aaron stepped forward, boots squelching, and stopped before the leader—the last one standing. The elf’s knives slipped from his hands, clattering uselessly, his eyes hollowed out, life draining like water through cracked earth. “How…why?” he rasped, voice a ghost of itself.


    Aaron tilted his head, studying him like a hawk with a wounded bird. “Well….You’ve got some potential,” he said, quiet and sure. “And.. I needed another pet anyway.” His hand moved, and a slavery spell coiled around the elf’s throat—tight, invisible, sinking in like venom. The leader’s gasp choked off, swallowed by the magic’s grip.


    “Now that you’re mine,” Aaron murmured, “you won’t need these.” His knife flashed, quick and cruel, slicing the elf’s long ears to stubs. Blood spilled, hot and dark, soaking the dirt, and the elf’s scream tore through the night—raw, ragged, a sound that clawed at the stars.


    Aaron’s smile curled slow, satisfied, a glint of teeth in the moonlight. He wiped the blade on his sleeve, turned, and walked back toward the city, leaving the wreckage to rot under the cold, endless sky.


    “….Dumbasses, thought they could all just leave.”