Soon the whole Sylvaris Kingdom was on high alert, demanding public execution of the humans who had dared to touch an elf. The streets of the crystal city filled with angry voices, with raised fists, with the particular fury of a people who had been told their entire lives that they were pure, that they were noble, that they were above the cruelty of the world.
Elves were considered the most sacred beings, creatures of art and music, of vast knowledge and ancient wisdom, their bloodline tracing back to the first light of the world.
To touch one without permission was an act of evil.
To torture one was unforgivable.
To reduce a princess of the royal bloodline to a mindless, growling beast, that was a crime beyond any punishment the laws had ever imagined.
And Sophia had been found.
The news spread through the kingdom like wildfire, burning through every city, every village, every hidden glade where elves had made their homes for millennia.
