Phase Two
*Kethryl*
The day after that lizard ruined everything, we found ourselves gathered in the hideout again. The air still felt heavy with the memory of the chaos, and I could almost taste the bitterness left behind. We managed to patch things up with the crown, though it cost me more than just a promise to pay. We elves could have weathered another blow to our reputation, but we were already running low on friends in Amor. The dragon’s name was already in tatters, so nothing new there. Even so, money couldn’t fix everything. There were too many wounded, too many bruised egos, and no one to blame but a dragon who would never answer for it. Their anger just hung in the air, looking for somewhere to settle.
We had settled in two groups throughout the hideout, the old floorboards creaking beneath our feet. Miriael, Calzifer, and I lingered upstairs, the hush between us thick and uneasy, while members of the Halflings Front of Amor—Rodrick, Anna, and that halfbreed boy—waited below. The house felt a bit too small for all the secrets pressing in on us.
“Kethryl, are you still mad? I already apologized. What else am I supposed to do?”
Calzifer’s so-called apology barely stirred the stagnant air between us. I didn’t bother pretending it helped. Instead, I just pressed on, tired of circling around what needed to be said.
“I’m not even going to honor that question and come straight to the point. Why are you here?”
“And don’t just say the old man sent you to have a look. Tell us the real reason why he had to send you, a dragon who is barely four hundred years old of all things, just to get a report,” shimmied Miriael in.
He let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Fine, you’re no fun. So I will stop, after all; I don’t want to drag-on”
The silence that followed stretched on like molasses, awkward and heavy, the kind that makes you painfully aware of every heartbeat. In all my thousands of years, I’d rarely seen a joke die such a lonely death.
“Yeez tough crowd…”
Eventually, the dragon cleared his throat, the sound breaking the uneasy quiet, and finally started to speak.
“Well, he didn’t just want a report. From the looks of it, he doesn’t seem to trust you much after your total failure in Aldmoor. According to him, you spent more than a hundred dwarven gold coins on mana stones for all these undead only for them to fail.”
“Since when does he care about money? He controls the dwarven banking clans.”
Annoyance flickered through me. The whole mess with the undead had been his idea, not mine. When I reported back after I found Gramm, I thought that at most he would use him to clear out the countryside, not take an entire city. Though admittedly even I got excited after I saw the sheer mass of undead he could command.
“It’s not really the money. A shipment of mana stones as large as this would draw too much attention.”
“So he is scared someone’s gonna find out?”
“Well, someone has.”
““What?””
Has someone really traced the mana stones back to us? The thought sent a chill through me, but I immediately pushed it aside. No one should have had the means or the knowledge to follow that trail. I’d made sure every loose end was tied off, or so I thought.
“You see, Wilthelm Yufen’s son or whatever brought a rather interesting gift to the last meeting he had with the king and the dukes.”
Dragons always wore their arrogance like armor. This one couldn’t even bother to remember the name of the strongest human in the kingdom, maybe even on this whole forsaken continent.
“What gift did Wilhelm Yuwen’s son bring?” Asked Miriael, her voice full of anticipation and worry.
“A witness.”
Miriael could hide her feelings from almost anyone, but after so many millennia together, I could read her like a favorite old story. For a heartbeat, guilt flickered across her face before she buried it again.
“What? That’s impossible; there weren’t any…”
“Does it jerk your memory, Miriael? Because it seems one of the Ibasan’s men saw you talking with their general. And he also noticed that a really powerful female earth mage who hid their face, with the same height and build as you, joined their assault shortly after you had that talk.”
“From whom did you hear this?! Who is the source?!”
She was so rattled, she forgot the dragon hadn’t even been there to witness any of it himself.
“I didn’t hear anything. But—he—did tell me that you all instead should focus on your secondary mission.”
“So your source is in the south?”
“Ah! You didn’t hear it from me, alright?”
With those last words, Calzifer turned into a flickering ball of flame and slipped out the window. Not a single scorch mark or trace of soot left behind—just a faint warmth in the air where he’d been.
We stood in silence for a long moment, the space between us charged and fragile. I moved closer, almost close enough to reach out, but Miriael’s frustration was a wall I knew better than to cross. When she was like this, she wouldn’t let anyone in—not even me.
“Do you remember when he saw you?”
I could hear her grinding her teeth, anger simmering just beneath the surface. When she finally spoke, her sigh sounded like it carried the weight of centuries, leaving her smaller somehow.
“Sigh, I was careless. I asked that useless ape to kill any who saw me by throwing them at the next frontal assault. I failed to make sure he kept his word. That witness must have been one of the idiots I sent down the tunnel.”
“Do you want to come down and discuss our next actions with the rest?”
“Just fill me in later.”
Tiredly, she let herself sink to the floor, her eyes fixed to the ground. She’d never slipped up like this before, not in all the years I’d known her. Maybe it was inevitable, but I knew better than to say so. Quietly, I opened the door and slipped downstairs, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Downstairs, the air was lighter, but only just. The halflings, battered and proud, clustered together, while the knight reeked of old drink and regret. The noblewoman sat apart, her chin lifted as if she could rise above the room’s discomfort. And then there was the halfbreed boy. I could almost ignore him, if not for the way he watched me—eyes full of hope that twisted something inside me. I wondered what stories his mother spun to fill him with that kind of longing, the kind that would never be answered. I wished she would stop.
I understood her reasons, even if I wished I didn’t. Elves can’t have children with each other—the soul anchors always turn out too unstable, and the result is always heartbreak. We can have children with humans, dwarves, beastfolk, gnomes, even halflings, though I doubt anyone’s tried every possibility. But I never wanted that, and she knew it. Still, she went searching for someone who looked enough like me to fool herself, or maybe to fool the boy. To fool me?
Even now, I could feel his gaze, hopeful and lost, clinging to me like a shadow. I kept my eyes away from him as I spoke to the others.
“Well, everyone, it seems like we will move to phase two.”
Rodrick was the first to break the silence, his drunken voice rough and edged with something that almost sounded like desperation.
“But what about Olivia? I have to…”
“Calm down, calm down. Phase two mostly consists of turning the south against the rest of the Kingdom. One or two more kidnappings would certainly speed up the process.”
Once I managed to calm him, Rodrick retreated into his drink again, clutching a bottle that seemed to appear from thin air. Still, he wasn’t the only one with doubts lingering in the air.
“He might be fine, but what about my side? When I joined, you told me that you would kill the old bastard and Janus for me so that my Joel could become the next head of house Yuwen. How can you ensure that that cheating bastard bites it when he is always staying at Rosedorn?”
I hated to admit it, but Anna was right. Her whispers about Fort Rosedorn had been more useful than I cared to acknowledge, especially when it came to Ruby Yuwen, who seemed to grow more troublesome with every passing day. Maybe it was only because every other attempt to plant a spy there had ended in quiet failure. Only those born beneath Wilhelm Yuwen’s shadow could move freely in that place, safe from suspicion. Anna’s bitterness made her a rare find, though it hadn’t stopped me from trying to rid myself of her precious son. Still, I needed to come up with something convincing, and quickly, before that vile bitch’s suspicions grew sharper.
“You are correct, Anna, that phase two won’t have much to do with Wilhelm Yuwen. But how could he sit still when the south threatens the north in open civil war? He will no doubt make a move, and if not by himself, he will send—his son.”
“Good, but don’t forget that you owe me elf.”
Oh, I know exactly what I owe you, you delusional whore.
I swallowed my words and let my gaze drift back to the Halflings Front of Amor, our by far most helpful tools. Who should not be mistaken for the Amorian Halflings Front. There were never many of them—barely enough to count on both hands, but what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in stubborn hope. Only three had gathered in our dim hideout today.
“Does that mean we will finally be free?”
It was Fennel Mossfoot who spoke, the youngest among them. His face was still untouched by time, barely older than fourteen, and his question hung in the air like a fragile wish.
“Yes, but only if we give it our all,” answered their leader, Grindle Lowhill. His words burned with conviction, though his eyes remained distant and cold. Still, the younger ones seemed to draw hope from him. He had previously accompanied me to Aldmoor and had proven rather capable at remaining unseen.
Doubt lingered only in the oldest, Wendell Mossfoot. His hair was white as winter, his face a map of deep lines and memories, yet his eyes still shone the same bright green as his grandson’s.
“If this tall one keeps his word, that is.”
Behind me, I heard Miriael’s footsteps on the stairs, her smile painted on for everyone but me. Only I could see the cracks in it. At last, it felt like the real game was about to begin.