Aldo turns his head slightly toward Lourdes, his brow furrowing as a dark shadow of hesitation passes over his eyes. His long fingers twitch against the seam of his trousers, rustling the coarse fabric with a dry, rhythmic friction.
"I didn't prepare for several hours of speech practice; I stutter every few words," Aldo whispers, his voice dropping into an awkward, uneven rasp that barely carries across the threshold. He clears his throat, his shoulders shifting uneasily under the heavy weight of his leather harness. "Could you please explain our plan to Elanariel and invite them to form an alliance? An alliance with them will bring us many advantages."
Lourdes lets out a sharp, clicking sound with her tongue, her dark eyes rolling upward as her lips press into a thin, tight line.
He's annoying, really, Lourdes thinks, her jaw tightening as she shoots him a quick, exasperated glare that burns through the dim, golden light of the tree chamber.
She takes a deep, deliberate breath, drawing herself up to her full height. Her posture straightens, her spine stiffening like an iron rod as she steps past Aldo, her boots making a soft, rhythmic thud-thud on the polished bark floor. She fixes her gaze upon Elanariel, her face softening into an expression of profound, theatrical melancholy.
"I deeply understand and empathize with you, Elanariel," Lourdes says, her voice trembling with a carefully modulated pitch that echoes softly off the living wooden walls. She places a hand over her heart, her fingers pressing into the fabric of her tunic. "I, a person who has been betrayed, exploited, and discriminated against like you—we, though from different worlds, share the same feelings. God has arranged for us to meet in an unexpected place at an unannounced moment. I believe you have a desire to reclaim the rights of the Elves in Heilop, to vindicate the great Magnar, and to end the hatred. It's just that... I, a slave hiding under Aldo Patriot, a slave soldier in the PCA, share the same desire for freedom as you."
She pauses dramatically, her dark eyes shining with an intense, burning light as she clasps her hands together before her chest.
"We have humanist ideals, which are..." Lourdes continues, raising her chin high.
Aldo shifts his weight, opening his mouth as his chest expands to interrupt. "We need to establish a system based on—"
Before the full sentence can clear his lips, Lourdes snaps her arm across his chest like a wooden bar. Her broad, calloused palm slams directly over his lower face, smothering his voice into an muffled, indignantly wet choke. She turns her head to Elanariel with a swift, sweeping motion, offering a tight, apologetic smile while her fingers dig firmly into Aldo's cheeks to hold him back.
"I am so terribly sorry, Chief Elanariel!" Lourdes chirps loudly, her eyes flashing a dangerous warning at the boy struggling against her grip.
She leans her head closer to Aldo's ear, her teeth gritting tightly as she hissed through a forced, frozen smile. "Shut up! Do not talk about your State Capitalism and Bureaucracy right now!"
Releasing him with a sharp shove, Lourdes turns back to Elanariel, her arms spreading wide in a grand, sweeping gesture. Her face transforms instantly, adopting an expression of sweeping, romantic zeal.
"What we offer you, Elanariel, is true Liberties!" Lourdes proclaims, her voice ringing out through the chamber as she paces back and forth, her boots tapping out a sharp cadence on the hard wood. "Civil Rights! The inviolable rights of the individual, the restoration of land sovereignty, the self-determination of your ancient tribes! Imagine a future where your people walk without fear under the sun, where the shade of your trees is respected by law, and where the dark shadow of the royal court can never touch your daughters again! Our long-term plan encompasses a complete restructuring of the border treaties, guaranteeing your autonomous governance while we dismantle the parasitic stranglehold of the PCA from within!"
Elanariel stands quietly near the arched doorway, her long, light-green hair drifting gently over her shoulders as a soft breeze rustles through the high canopy outside. Her fair face remains entirely serene, her emerald eyes reflecting the flickering glow of the moss above. She listens to Lourdes's passionate, dramatic performance with a slow, gentle tilt of her head, her long pointed ears twitching once, twice, in response to the rising cadence of the speech.
Inwardly, a cool, ancient cynicism settles deep within Elanariel's chest. A grand speech from a child playing at revolution, she reflects quietly, her gaze drifting over Lourdes's flushed cheeks and then to Aldo, who is sullenly adjusting his collar where her hand had clamped over his mouth. They are children leading children. Their chances of breaking the iron machinery of Heilop and the Crown are practically nonexistent. But an alliance on paper... costs me nothing. It binds my tribe to no blood debt, yet it buys us an avenue of information through the enemy's own slave ranks.
Elanariel's lips curve into a warm, graceful smile that masks the cold calculation behind her emerald eyes. She bows her head slightly, placing a slender, fair hand over her sternum.
"I accept your proposal, Lourdes," Elanariel says softly, her voice smooth and harmonious like water flowing over polished river stones. "The Piwanen tribe will recognize this compact of mutual aid."
The air grows heavy with the thick, iron scent of dried blood, bitter medicinal herbs, and damp wool as Aldo leads Elanariel, Amariel, and Lourdes down from the canopy bridges toward a shaded, low-lying clearing where the roots of the massive trees form natural, cavernous alcoves.
Spread out across beds of crushed ferns and woven straw lie the young earthling slave soldiers of the 204th, 205th, and 203rd companies. Over three hundred teenagers—their faces bruised, their uniforms torn, their eyes hollow with the lingering shock of the sudden battle—rest under the watchful care of the tribe's healers. Near the center of the camp, Comtois lies stretched out on a thick wooden litter, his broad, muscular chest rising and falling in deep, heavy unconsciousness, his breathing snoring violently through a broken, blood-caked nose. Nearby, Adelberd sits propped against a mossy root, his face pale as a healer binds a clean linen bandage tightly around his bare ribs.
Aldo walks through the rows of wounded boys, his sharp dark eyes scanning the perimeter. In a shaded corner beneath a sweeping root arch, three tall elf men sit on a fallen log. Their fair skin is pale, and though their slender, straight noses appear entirely unblemished and straight to the eye, all three keep their fingers pressed firmly against the bridge of their snouts, wincing every time they inhale.
Lourdes slows her pace, her brow furrowing in confusion as she watches them continuously touch and test their noses with cautious, trembling fingertips.
"Is there something wrong with your faces?" Lourdes asks, pointing a finger toward them.
One of the elf men looks up, his emerald eyes flashing with lingering annoyance as he points a long, slender finger directly at the massive, unconscious frame of Comtois lying twenty paces away.
"That brute," the elf grumbles, his voice nasal and muffled as he winces from the movement of his own lips. "He was unconscious on his feet during the clash, yet when we approached to disarm him, he threw a blind, wild right hook that nearly flattened my face into my skull. The bone is whole, but the cartilage feels as if it were struck by an iron sledge."
Beside him, a second elf man shifts uncomfortably, his hand reaching behind his waist to gingerly rub his lower spine. He lets out a low, bitter hiss through his teeth.
"I was hit in the back by one of their shield bosses," the second elf growls, his long ears drooping in frustration. "Our magic has knitt the bone back together, yet the deep marrow aches bitterly every time the wind changes."
Aldo pays the complaining elves no mind. He turns his head toward the edge of the horse lines, where the company's mounts are tethered to low pine branches. His eyes lock onto a striking scene.
Standing beside his favorite bay horse is a young elf girl with long, shimmering blonde hair that falls past her waist in neat braids, and striking, honey-brown eyes. She wears a tunic of soft, forest-green leather, her slender hand gently stroking the bridge of the horse's snout while the animal nuzzles against her shoulder with familiar ease.
As Aldo approaches, his boots crunching on the dry needles, the girl turns sharply. Her honey-brown eyes narrow, and she steps directly into his path, placing both palms flat against her chest in a gesture of absolute, unyielding possession.
"I am Kaelani Softstride," the blonde elf girl announces, her high, clear voice cutting through the damp forest air. "And these horses belong to me. They are the direct blood descendants of the royal mounts bred by my family four hundred years ago!"
With a swift, dramatic flourish of her arm, Kaelani pulls a thick, yellowed piece of parchment from her leather belt. The paper is frayed at the edges, dark with age, and stamped with a faded, crumbling wax seal depicting an ancient oak leaf. She thrusts the parchment directly under Aldo's nose, holding it taut between her hands.
"Behold!" Kaelani declares proudly, her honey-brown eyes flashing. "This is an official certificate of private property ownership from four hundred years ago, signed under the authority of Magnar the Kind himself!"
Aldo stops dead in his tracks. He looks at the yellowed paper, then at the girl, his sharp face tightening into an expression of deep, burning irritation. His dark eyes flash with rare, visible anger as his brow furrows deeply.
"It's the offsprings, not that dead horse!" Aldo shouts, his voice rising in an abrupt, sharp burst of temper as he gestures fiercely toward the animal behind her. "Give it back so we can move!"
Kaelani holds her ground, raising the ancient, crumbling document higher until it almost touches his forehead. "I hold the rightful title! The bloodline of these beasts belongs to the Softstride estate! The document is absolute!"
Aldo takes a sharp breath, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as he steps right up to her, his jaw set like stone.
"Magnar's State no longer exists!" Aldo argues fiercely, his tone cold, logical, and biting. "You haven't updated your knowledge in four centuries! This paper is completely worthless, outdated trash!"
He reaches out with a broad hand, attempting to push past her shoulder to grab his horse's leather reins.
Kaelani sidesteps instantly with light, nimble grace, throwing her body back between him and the bay horse. She spreads her arms wide, her long ears twitching backward.
"It doesn't matter what you say!" Kaelani retorts sharply, a triumphant smirk touching her lips. "I can talk to it; you can't do anything! The horse knows my voice!"
Aldo's eyes narrow into dangerous slits. He reaches deep into his inner tunic pocket, pulls out a fresh, crisp sheet of parchment stamped with the heavy, dark-blue crest of the current provincial administration, and thrusts it violently into Kaelani's face, snapping the paper taut right before her eyes.
"I have the certificate!" Aldo snarls, his voice ringing out over the camp. "Backed by a recognized and valid polity of the current Sevan era!"
Kaelani doesn't even look at the paper. She turns her nose up into the air, her honey-brown eyes brimming with cold disdain. "I don't recognize that reign."
"Even if you don't recognize it, it hasn't stopped existing!" Aldo shoots back, his teeth gritting together so hard his jaw twitches.
Kaelani folds her arms tightly across her chest, leaning her head back with a look of pure, stubborn defiance. "But I hold it in fact; what can you do about it?"
Aldo doesn't say another word. His face turns completely stone-cold. He steps forward, reaches down with both hands, grabs Kaelani by her waist, lifts her effortlessly two feet off the ground, sets her firmly down three paces to the side, and immediately turns to walk toward his horse.
"Hey!" Kaelani shrieks in absolute outrage.
Before Aldo can take two steps, Kaelani drops to her knees and lunges forward, wrapping both of her arms tightly around his left leg like an iron vise. Aldo freezes, dragging his heavy boot forward, but Kaelani scrambles up his body like a squirrel ascending a pine trunk. She hooks her legs around his hips, climbs onto his back, and extends her feet downward, digging her boot heels firmly into the dirt behind him to anchor his body to the spot.
"It's mine!" Kaelani screams into his ear, her braids whipping against his cheek as she pulls back on his shoulders with all her strength.
"Noooo!" Aldo yells out, his voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated frustration as he sways under her weight, trying desperately to shake her off his back. "It's my certified and valid private property ownership!"
Kaelani tightens her arms around his neck, glaring down at the top of his head with wild, stubborn fury. "I'm their friend! Unlike that you mayfly who only cares about owning them as tools!"
Lourdes hurries over, her hands raised in a soothing, peacemaking gesture as she looks at the ridiculous sight of the blonde elf girl clinging to the fourteen-year-old boy's back like a overgrown backpack.
"Please, let's be reasonable!" Lourdes pleads, her raspy voice full of desperation as she reaches into her belt pouch. "We can offer you compensation! Silver coins! Supplies! Anything to settle this fairly!"
Kaelani turns her head, snapping at Lourdes with a fierce glare. "I need the horses, not the money! Money cannot buy four hundred years of family bloodline!"
Aldo twists his shoulders violently from side to side, trying to throw her off, but Kaelani's grip is ironclad. He grimaces, his dark eyes glaring back over his shoulder at her.
"You can swing on a tree in the jungle!" Aldo growls out through clenched teeth. "And besides, I won't accept compensation! Legally, I haven't done anything wrong!"
Kaelani throws her head back and opens her mouth, letting out a sharp, high-pitched shriek that echoes across the entire forest clearing.
"HELP! HELP ME! HUMAN THIEVES ARE STEALING MY FAMILY'S HERITAGE!" Kaelani screams at the top of her lungs.
A group of elf archers standing nearby leaning against the broad trunk of a redwood turn their heads to watch the struggle. Instead of drawing their bows, they simply let out a long, collective sigh. One elder archer shakes his head, rubbing his temples with two fingers.
"Legally, you're completely wrong, Kaelani," the elder archer calls out, his voice full of dry, tired disappointment.
A second archer beside him nods in agreement, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks at her with a deadpan expression. "You've lived for centuries, Kaelani, and you're arguing childishly with someone who isn't even eighteen years old. Let the boy go."
Kaelani's face turns bright red with embarrassment and fury. "Shut up! All of you!"
Gritting her teeth, she attempts to use her full body weight to twist Aldo down onto the grass, aiming to pin him to the earth. But Aldo's low center of gravity and dense, armored frame hold firm. He braces his boots against the dirt, shifts his hips, and gives a violent, sudden upward heave of his shoulders.
Kaelani loses her grip, slipping off his back and tumbling onto the soft ferns with a muffled oof.
She scrambles to her feet instantly, her braids wild, her honey-brown eyes flashing with tearful outrage. She glares at Aldo, stomps her foot violently onto the ground, turns around, and goes running off through the trees, grabbing a startled Elanariel by her silk sleeve as she passes and dragging the Chief along behind her.
Elanariel walks alongside Aldo, her light-green hair swaying gently as she offers him a gentle, persuasive smile. Beside them, Kaelani stands a few paces back, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, pouting fiercely while her honey-brown eyes glare holes into the back of Aldo's head.
"Aldo," Elanariel begins softly, her voice carrying a soothing, melodic tone as she gestures toward the horse lines. "Would you perhaps consider giving up horseback riding for this journey? Kaelani is extraordinarily passionate about these beasts. Horse breeding has been the long-standing, sacred tradition of her Softstride family for over four centuries. It grieves her deeply to see them ridden away."
Aldo doesn't slow his stride. He keeps his eyes fixed on the trail ahead, his face impassive and set like granite.
"No," Aldo refuses flatly, his tone completely devoid of compromise. "I still need to use horseback to travel a long distance across Alfonsia and then through Marthodory to reach Ofliran. We have a strict schedule to keep."
Elanariel stops walking, her long ears twitching as she considers his words. A thoughtful look settles over her fair features, her emerald eyes lighting up with a sudden, practical solution.
"If it is merely a matter of distance and travel time," Elanariel offers smoothly, "I could simply cast a spell to summon your entire company directly to the border of Ofliran. Since your men only travel by boat on missions once you reach that region anyway, the horses would only prove a burden to you there."
Aldo halts instantly. He turns his head, his sharp dark eyes inspecting Elanariel's calm expression, weighing the tactical efficiency of instantaneous transport against days of hard riding across hostile roads.
His rigid posture slowly relaxes, and he gives a single, pragmatic nod. "I agree."
Behind them, Kaelani lets out a triumphant gasp, her pouting face instantly dissolving into a wide, beaming smile.
Elanariel turns to the blonde elf girl, her voice turning firm and authoritative. "Kaelani, draw the spatial teleportation circle upon the ancient stone platform."
Kaelani grumbles softly under her breath, though her eyes shine with relief as she scurries over to a wide, flat moss-covered stone dais embedded in the forest floor. She pulls a piece of glowing white chalk from her belt, drops to her knees, and begins drawing complex, interlocking geometric runes and flowing elven scripts across the weathered surface, her mouth twisted in a soft, grumbling pout as she works.
When the intricate chalk design is complete, Elanariel and her daughter Amariel step onto opposite sides of the dais. They raise their slender hands toward the sky, their voices joining together in a low, resonant, double-toned chant that vibrates through the very stone beneath their feet.
GLOW.
The chalk lines flare with a brilliant, pulsing golden-white illumination, sending beams of soft light shooting up through the gaps in the stone platform.
Aldo steps up to the edge of the circle, looking at Elanariel with a critical, calculating eye.
"Can you please adjust the arrival location to..." Aldo instructs firmly, pointing a finger at the center of the glowing glyphs. "Place us about two hundred paces from the Ofliran border crossing... onto a flat, deserted spot. Do not drop us inside their guard post."
Elanariel nods her head gracefully, adjusting the focus of her spell with a subtle shift of her raised palms. "It shall be as you wish."
The three hundred and twenty men of the 204th, 205th, and 203rd companies, along with twenty of Lourdes's mercenaries disguised in worn leather armor and dark cloaks, begin filing onto the wide stone platform in disciplined, orderly groups. Group after group steps into the blinding light, vanishing into thin air with a sharp, instantaneous pop of displaced atmospheric pressure.
Finally, only Aldo and Lourdes remain at the edge of the dais.
As they step forward to enter the circle, small, light footsteps hurry toward them from the side trail.
Amariel comes to a sudden halt right in front of them, her cheeks flushed, her short light-green hair messy from running. She reaches into her small pouch, pulls out a delicately carved piece of silver, and forcibly presses it directly into Lourdes's palm, closing the girl's fingers over it.
The object is a silver leaf-shaped engraving, shimmering with a soft, natural polish, intricate veins running across its metallic surface.
"Keep this!" Amariel demands, her emerald eyes staring intently into Lourdes's face, her tone full of childish seriousness. "Keep it so I will recognize you the next time we meet! And do not sell it! If you sell it, I will be very, very sad!"
Aldo looks down at the silver leaf in Lourdes's hand, his dark eyes instantly narrowing into an analytical, commercial squint. He opens his mouth, his tongue shifting behind his teeth.
"How much silver is this wor—" Aldo begins to ask.
Before he can finish the word "worth," Lourdes's broad palm flies out again, clamping over his mouth with a violent, wet smack. She smiles wildly at Amariel, nodding her head so hard her neck aches.
"We will keep it forever! Thank you, Amariel!" Lourdes yells out over Aldo's muffled, indignant grunts.
Holding Aldo firmly by the collar of his armor, Lourdes drags him backward onto the glowing stone platform. As their boots touch the outer edge of the outer chalk circle, a blinding, absolute column of pure white light erupts from the stone, enveloping their bodies entirely.
Aldo squeezes his eyes shut against the searing glare.
From where she stands at the edge of the clearing, Elanariel watches as the brilliant light swallows the two teenagers whole. In a fraction of a microsecond, the light collapses inward with a soft whoosh, leaving the ancient stone platform completely empty, cold, and quiet under the towering pine canopy.
SWISH.
A cool, sharp, mineral-laden wind rushes over Aldo's face, carrying the dry smell of sun-baked dust and crushed limestone.
Aldo opens his eyes.
The lush, towering green canopies of the ancient Elven forests are gone.
Before Aldo, Comtois—who is rubbing his sore nose with a groggy, confused expression—Adelberd, and Lourdes lies the harsh, rugged, stone-strewn landscape of southern Mikhland, near the border of Gertrudia. Jagged grey rocks jut out from the earth like broken teeth, with patches of tough, yellowish mountain grass growing stubbornly in the narrow soil cracks between the stones.
Directly behind them, stretching out toward the horizon as far as the eye can see, are the vast, rolling, impossibly fertile green fields of Marthodory. Boundless rows of cultivated vegetables, tall stalks of jute, green hemp, and flowering flax wave gently under the bright sun. Beyond the crops, wide, fenced pastures dot the landscape, where large herds of fat cattle and fluffy white sheep graze lazily on the rich clover. A few solitary shepherds stand scattered across the distant green hills of Marthodory, leaning on their long wooden crooks, watching the sudden appearance of the armed warband with quiet, distant curiosity.
Adelberd reaches into his leather travel pouch, pulling out a heavy, rolled parchment map. He unrolls it across his forearm, his bright blue eyes scanning the terrain features before pointing a gloved finger toward the southeast horizon, where a distant, dark green line indicates a river valley cutting through the hills.
"Go southeast to this Anima River," Adelberd commands smoothly, his voice clear and resolute in the dry mountain air. "Downstream lies the city of Oceania."
Aldo adjusts his heavy vest straps, his dark eyes fixing on the distant river valley. Beside him, Lourdes safely slips the small silver leaf engraving deep into her inner pocket.
Without a single word, the three hundred and twenty men adjust their packs, sling their weapons over their shoulders, and set off together in a tight, disciplined column, their heavy iron boots crunching softly over the sun-baked stones of the borderland.