“Hmph... you wear the mask well. I almost wavered.” She flicked her wrist; a green longbow bloomed like a fresh bough in her hand. She drew; mana braided itself into an arrow, its tip a shard of dawn aimed between Alicia’s brows. “Last chance. Tell me why you’re really here, and I might let you live.”

Alicia shook her head, like a willow refusing the wind. She truly had nothing else to say; her purpose was simple—invite the Elvenfolk into the Mystic Realm. To Amelia, that shake read as a vow to die silent, like frost sealing a stream.

Amelia’s eyes tightened, cold as moonlight on steel. Whatever else she didn’t know, she trusted this arrow’s weight; it could maim a third-rate god like a hammer through pottery. Alicia couldn’t possibly take it head-on, not like stone against tide.

She had considered Alicia might bolt like a startled deer, but she trusted the arrow’s speed, sharp as lightning across a night field.

“Fine. Since you’re so eager to die, I’ll see you off.”

She slid the nocked arrow back a hair; warning shifted to killing, like dusk sliding into night.

“Elven Esoterica: Death’s Gift.”

Whoosh—

The arrow sprang from the bow; a mana gale rode its spine like a storm riding a spear. Floorboards tore up like autumn leaves; furniture took wing; the ceiling peeled like wet paper. Good thing Amelia remembered Elfe, or a sleeping little elf girl would’ve joined the debris, a swallow in a hurricane.

Yet Alicia stood in the heart of it, unmoving, like a stone lantern in rain. Before her, that house-ripping wind was just a fan on low.

The gale couldn’t touch her, but the arrow still would. Alicia didn’t move; her feet felt nailed to the earth, like roots clinging to bedrock. The strike would reach her all the same.

Crack—

A clean sound cut the storm, like ice splitting on a winter river.

In the end, a fool, Amelia thought, her doubt melting like frost. I thought she had a hidden ace; guess I overthought it.

Dust veiled her sight like a drawn curtain; she judged by sound alone. That was a skull breaking, clear as a bell in cold air.

The arrow hit; its brutal momentum transmuted to death, like hoarfrost racing over a leaf. The storm it birthed had no such power, and it unraveled like fog in sunlight.

Dust settled like tired snow. Vision cleared. Let me think—how does that saying go? All smoke, no wounds... right?

“Ah-la-la~ I didn’t expect the proud Elvenfolk to wield something called Death’s Gift. Sounds wicked at a glance. An esoterica, no less. Aren’t you all Lich Kings reborn?”

“Eh?!”

The teasing voice was a bell you could name by tone. Ling, who’d trailed behind Alicia like a shadow, finally stepped onto the stage.

The smoke thinned. Ling came into focus, small as a fox and twice as smug. In her hands lay the very arrow that had ridden the storm. Once a symbol of invincibility, it was now snapped in two like a twig, both halves easy in her grip.

“Impossible! How did you—how did you do that?!”

The turn was unthinkable; panic stung like nettles. In her senses earlier, that little girl had been tagged [No Threat]. Now she’d broken Amelia’s strongest art like dry reed.

Ling wasn’t surprised. She flicked both halves to the floor. The mana-forged arrow touched earth and crumbled to glitter, like frost under a heel.

“Believe it or not, I’ll say it again. We came for one thing: to bring the Elvenfolk into the Mystic Realm. If you refuse, we’ll keep at it until you agree. We won’t strong-arm you like brutes.”

She glanced around at the wreck, splinters and beams like driftwood after a flood. Most of it was the Queen’s doing anyway, but she shrugged and took the blame like a stray leaf on her sleeve.

“We trashed your place this badly, so you probably won’t invite us back. We’ll go stay elsewhere. If anything comes up, contact us with—this.”

She tossed down a pager-like block; it thumped the floor like a dropped seed, then she left with Alicia, slipping away between shadows like dusk through pines. Ling trusted Amelia’s wits to figure out such a toy.

Only after the two had long vanished did Amelia move, like a lake exhaling. She stepped to where Ling had stood and bent, fishing a rectangular block from the rubble like a shell from shingle. She stared into the path they’d taken, eyes glinting with [DATA REDACTED].

——————————

Hand in hand, Alicia and Ling walked beneath the trees, dappled light flickering over them like fish in a brook. They were far from Amelia’s reach now—wild ground, no fences, just wind.

“So why leave without explaining?” Alicia asked, voice low as moss. “She’d cooled down. A few words and a simple check, and the knot would’ve come loose. Why make it harder?”

“Because I don’t want us negotiating from the shade,” Ling said, easy as a cat in sun. “If we keep explaining, we show the Elvenfolk matter too much. Then what if they press us, like oars against our ribs?”

It made clean sense, like a path after rain. To Alicia’s ear, there was no flaw; Ling’s way kept them at the rudder in what came next.

Since Alicia accepted that reason, the other one—petty and warm as a coal, wanting payback for Alicia being wronged—could stay tucked away like a knife in a sleeve.

“But... what if they don’t come back to us?” Alicia’s worry fluttered like a moth. “If they lift Elfe’s ‘curse,’ what reason would they have to seek us out?”

“They won’t,” Ling said, soft as a falling leaf.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they won’t get the chance to lift the ‘curse,’” Ling replied, eyes bright as stars under branches. “Because the ‘curse’ has already begun.”