"Ha."

  Swordsmanship? Not my strongest suit. Riding, though — that I could vouch for. I'd always put considerably more hours into the saddle than into the blade, for reasons I won't get into here.

  I burst out of the escort formation like a gust of wind. My peripheral vision caught it in an instant: a figure mixed with a spray of blood, launched from the trees lining the road, crashing hard to the ground and barely moving.

  The one lying there half-dead was an elf. Female — I could tell even through all the blood. She looked like the losing side of whatever fight had just happened.

  Just as I was nearly on top of her —

  A blinding arc of lightning screamed in from the direction she'd come from, aimed straight at the body on the ground.

  They say you can judge a master from a single move. Whoever had thrown that bolt wasn't playing around. The density, the control — that was at least a full tier above me.

  I didn't hesitate.

  "Tier-One Earth Magic — Stone Wall!"

  A slab of packed earth over twenty feet tall erupted from the ground beside the elf, catching the lightning dead center. Current raced through the wet soil in every direction, then drained into the earth and vanished.

  ◆

  The dust hadn't settled before five figures stepped out of the treeline.

  My chest tightened.

  All five were elves. Dark elves, specifically. Unlike common elves with their varied hair colors, dark elves were easy to pick out: jet-black hair, skin a shade deeper than most. Their two leaders — a man and a woman — moved with the unhurried ease of people who had never once doubted which way a confrontation would go. As though this stretch of mountain road belonged to them, and we were simply animals that had wandered into their territory.

  But it wasn't them that made my chest tighten.

  It was her.

  I'd seen beautiful women before. I'd seen elves. I'd met a handful whose looks could hold a candle to hers. But that quality she carried —

  That quality, I had never encountered before.

  She was breathtaking in the way that kept you at a distance.

  Her hair was a rare silver-black, dark with a faint cold sheen to it, like a lake surface at midnight. Her skin ran noticeably lighter than her companions' — the unmistakable mark of mixed blood. Human lineage, written plainly across her features. Yet it hadn't softened her. If anything, it made the contrast sharper: the human warmth implied by that complexion, and the absolute absence of it in everything else about her.

  Her features were precise and severe. Brows with a cold arch. A mouth that didn't look like it was built for smiling. Eyes like a blade that had never been sheathed — and had no intention of starting now.

  Not aloof. Not haughty.

  Just genuinely indifferent to your existence.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The whole of her gave off a nearly instinctive repellent quality — beautiful, yes, in the way a flower growing at the edge of a cliff in winter is beautiful. You can admire it from a distance. Reach for it, and it will take you down with it without a second thought.

  I looked at her for one beat too long.

  ◆

  "What are you staring at?"

  She noticed. One sharp word, and she swung — a slash of sword-qi laced with lightning, fast and clean, aimed directly at my eyes. No wind-up. No warning.

  It caught me off guard — I hadn't clocked her as a dual-specialist, blade and magic both — and I had no choice but to throw myself off my horse. The sword-qi screamed past. By the time I hit the ground, the horse no longer had a head. Blood arced through the air in a wide, dark spray.

  The thirty-odd knights riding with me responded at once, blades drawn, spreading into a fan formation behind me, facing down five elves across the road.

  "Human. This is an internal matter of our people. Leave now, and no one needs to die."

  The male elf's voice was soft, his phrasing polite. His eyes, however, never once landed on any of us. The disdain wasn't performed — it was simply the natural byproduct of someone who had not yet encountered a reason to regard us as relevant.

  He wasn't entirely wrong. Elves outclassed humans in raw magical ability, and these two were clearly dual-specialists at a high level. Thirty-odd elite knights, and they hadn't shifted their stance by a degree.

  I tilted my head back and laughed.

  Then I got to my feet, dusted myself off, raised my right hand, and extended my middle finger at them.

  All five dark elves went still at once.

  Not because of the gesture.

  Because of what was on that finger.

  The Manastone Ring on my middle finger threw off a faint black gleam — the kind that people who knew what they were looking at didn't enjoy seeing. Darkness and light were the rarest affinities in the world. Artifacts built around them numbered fewer than fifty on the entire continent, and not one of them was to be taken lightly.

  These five knew exactly what that ring could do. If I detonated the compressed dark-element charge inside it, none of them could say with confidence what the mountain would look like afterward.

  "Dark elves," I said, drawing it out. "Impressive title. You pick a fight on my land, hurt people on my land, and then take a swing at me personally. Quite a lot of nerve."

  The female elf's expression went cold. The killing intent that radiated off her was thick enough to feel. But the male elf finally looked at me — properly, for the first time — and went quiet.

  "Nyra. Don't."

  Nyra.

  The one who looked like a blade that had never learned to stay sheathed. Her name was Nyra.

  "This man isn't worth our concern," she said. Her voice was clear and cold, like ice breaking underfoot. "I don't believe he has the nerve to trigger that ring."

  "Normally, you'd be right," I said. "But it's rare to have company this striking for the occasion. Somehow I've found my nerve. — Knights. You all have a clear picture of what's happened here tonight?"

  The knights answered in unison behind me.

  "Good. Unauthorized entry into human territory. Armed conflict within that territory resulting in injury. Direct assault on the territory's lord." I let the words land one at a time. "That's your declaration of war, signed and witnessed."

  All five elves reacted.

  I didn't give them time to think. I began feeding mana into the Manastone Ring — slow and deliberate — and the crystal flared, swallowing my hand in a pulse of black light. At the same moment, I signaled my knights. They shifted back quietly, ready to move.

  We couldn't beat these five in a straight fight. But if my people made it back to Feyburn City and reported that I'd died in a dark elf ambush, the Dark Elf Nation would find themselves answering to the Black Dragon Legion — one hundred thousand soldiers under my father and elder brother, and not in a mood to negotiate.

  They could do the math.

  Something shifted in the male elf's eyes. Surprise, first. Then a guarded, reluctant respect. "You are the Lord of Feyburn, Yavanti Radell?"

  "That's me."

  "Your reputation precedes you. I apologize for the trouble we've caused this evening, my lord. If you'd allow me to explain—"

  His tone had smoothed out completely. Polite. Elaborate. Circular.

  But I caught the edge of a smirk cross Nyra's face, and I understood immediately. He was stalling. Buying time for the elf on the ground to finish dying, so there'd be nothing left to save.

  I wasn't interested in playing along.

  "Three seconds. After that, consequences are yours. One... two..."

  The male elf gave a small shrug, adjusted the black cloak around his shoulders, and turned away. The cold smile stayed in place as he and the others withdrew.

  "Not unworthy of the name Yavanti," he said, glancing back after a few steps. "I am Teneshu — Supreme Commander of the Dark Elf military. We will meet again."

  ◆

  I didn't bother watching them go. I walked over to the elf on the ground. The knights closed around me without being told, forming a circle.

  Female, as expected. Her face was painted in blood, but the features underneath weren't bad.

  Good. If she'd turned out to be an eyesore, tonight would've been a complete loss.

  "Young master. Let her go quietly."

  Emis stepped through the ring of knights and crouched beside the body, her expression composed, her voice carrying a faint undercurrent of something that wasn't quite pity but wasn't entirely clinical either.

  Left arm severed at the elbow. Right eye destroyed. Blood seeping steadily from both ears — ruptured eardrums. And that was before accounting for the internal damage.

  Saving her was beyond the question. Even if a life could somehow be preserved, this elf would spend the rest of her long years as little more than a shell. Emis meant what she said: let her go quietly. It was the kinder option.

  And then something surfaced in my mind that I'd been avoiding thinking about.

  "Ice Coffin."

  I didn't answer Emis. Two of the mid-rank mages traveling with us moved without being asked, casting a water-affinity Ice Coffin over the elf's body — sealing her shattered form and severed limb alike inside a shell of crystal ice.

  "Emis." I straightened up. "Get word to Knight-Commander Riando. The mercenary garrison and the Black Dragon Cavalry as well."

  Emis looked at me for a moment. She didn't ask. She nodded and went.

  Being a lord is genuinely exhausting.

  Nyra finally makes her entrance.

  Some enemies you defeat.Some you negotiate with.And some… you just survive the first meeting with.

  Let’s just say this won’t be the last time the Lord of Feyburn and the Dark Elves cross paths.

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