"Requiem!"

"Endless Debilitation!"

"Flower of Hope!"

"Platinum Diamond!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

...

A jumble of spells tumbled from the man’s mouth like beads from a snapped string, and layer after layer of glow sank over Elfe like thin frost on glass. Even as a master of weakening arts, he felt his chest wheeze like a tired bellows.

His target was the Princess, and the thought was a blade skimming silk; anything with hidden bite couldn’t be used. Even simple weakening shouldn’t touch a royal skin of porcelain. The Queen’s mercy was a lantern in fog tonight; he wouldn’t gamble a thorn that might prick the Princess.

His mind held weakening spells like a library of winter leaves, but mishaps still crept in like chill under a door. At first they bit, then each effect thinned like rain fading to drizzle. A spell that once held for ten heartbeats now flickered for one or two, a firefly dying at dawn, and worry rolled through the room like a low tide.

He swapped weaknesses like trading masks in a shadow play, and each one failed in the end like arrows spent in a quiver gone dry.

Even an elf with years of craft can be ground down like stone under water. The variety was one millstone, his mana spent was another, a well showing its muddy bottom.

“Everyone… bad news,” he said, voice a paper lantern in wind. “I’m almost out of spells… and mana’s about gone too…”

He flashed a plea to the men behind him like a signal mirror, but they kept tracing the array to lift the Curse, fingers steady as ants on a trail. The Queen only shot him a glare sharp as winter sun, and snapped, “Even if you can’t, I’ll wring every drop of mana out of you! Touch the core if you must. I’ll have the nation keep you for life afterward!”

Her promise sounded like a painted cake to stave off hunger, and it didn’t stoke his fire; his spirit sagged like a sail in dead calm.

This world isn’t a factory where a foreman yells “Overtime!” and everyone turns into perpetual-motion iron men; an empty voucher won’t whip a river into a flood.

“You questioning me?” Her voice cracked like thunder on dry hills.

He’d been staring into air, and Elfe’s body lost a layer of weakness like armor plates falling off, pain tightening her face like frost on a bud. The Queen’s shout yanked him back like a hooked fish.

“S–sorry! Mana stalled for a second—back now!” He tossed out a shabby excuse like a patched umbrella, and went back to work. He didn’t trust empty promises, but if he slacked, even that paper moon would vanish; a death sentence would drop like a guillotine.

“Sleep!”

“Jigglypuff’s Song!”

“Nap Time!”

...

Another string of chants spilled like sparrows from a bush, and after fewer than ten casts, resistance rose like callus on skin, dulling them to nothing. He felt his mana drop like an ebb tide; if you want an image, think of a cup after a drink, with only a few beads clinging—his power was those last reluctant drops.

Amitabha! God, for my sake, let them finish, he prayed, tossing wishes like coins into a dark well.

Who knew what altar he believed in, but the wish landed like a stone in still water—the array across the room flashed once, a dawn-red blink, the omen of completion.

“Clear out!” barked the one who sounded like the lead, his shout snapping like a whip. People scattered like startled birds, though a few still chattered, sparks in dry grass.

“Whoa, what’s up today? The array just simplified itself! We finished a whole hour and a half early!”

“Maybe we’re just that good. Maybe the world itself opened a backdoor for us!”

They puffed useless air like boys blowing on dandelions, and the circle sealed with a soft pop, a seedpod bursting. It spun over the floor like a slow wheel, red light seeping out like thin blood-mist, and the air took on the chill of things that brush against a Curse.

“Your Majesty! We have to move the Princess onto the array!”

The Queen’s eyes lit like flint striking tinder. She’d only been able to wait, a sword sheathed; she knew no support magic, and they’d refused her help with the array, forgetting the sharpest spear in the tent. Success scattered her petty calculations like abacus beads rolling off a desk.

She rushed to Elfe and shoved the man still casting, a breeze to a brittle reed. Maybe he’d overcast; Amelia, the Queen, barely touched him and he collapsed like a felled tree, foam at his lips, eyes rolling white, somewhere between death and dawn. Why “half alive”? Even on the floor, his arm stayed lifted like a banner in wind, his mouth muttering new spells, but no light danced at his fingertips—the well was truly dry.

She murmured “You were a good man” in her heart, a flower laid on a cairn, and stepped over his “corpse,” heel light as a cat.

Elfe went down in her arms like something stamped Handle with care, a feather eased onto snow. Amelia set her inside the circle with a touch like falling petals, then backed out past the chalk line like a tide receding; she knew she couldn’t help, and wouldn’t turn jade to dust by trying cleverness.