From the forest village, I left at dawn.
Not because of some grand prophecy or ancestral dream. I left because I wanted to see the mountains.
My pack was light—only dried fruit, a satchel of seeds, a sleeping mat, and a bone-handled knife gifted by a grandmother I barely remembered.
"Take more food," Father said, for the third time. He stood at the edge of the old trail, arms crossed, robes too fine for morning mist. "Or a bow. Or a wife."
"I'm not taking a wife," I muttered.
"You said you'd think about it," he pressed. "Elenira's daughter—"
"Is forty. Too young."
"Elven years," he countered. "She's nearly—"
"No."
He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Caelum, there are barely a hundred of us left. The wilds don't breed new elves. You know this. If you don't—"
"I said I'd marry when I return."
He paused, studying me. "You said that last time."
"And I meant it that time, too."
Truth was, I didn't know if I would return. Every time I left, I didn't know. Not because of any peril, for that I could handle well with my seeds. I just didn't want to marry at all. I couldn't care less about propagating our species or keeping our legacy.
But I wasn't about to say that aloud. Not to him. Not here, where every tree still remembered my name, where my footprints had worn grooves into the tree bridges and my voice had once echoed through the hollow roots of the elder tree that watched over us all.
"I just want to walk to the Spine," I said. "Follow the cloud-paths. See the sunrise from the other side of the world."
"Then do it quickly," he said, not unkindly. "And come back with stories. And a reason to stay home."
I nodded once, shouldering my satchel. A hush fell between us—the kind that only grows between father and son when neither wants to admit they care too much.
Before I could step forward, a small hand tugged at my cloak.
"Caelum?"
Little Serel. Barely old enough to hold a seed in one palm without dropping it. His hair was braided into thorn-shaped curls by someone with too much time, and his wide eyes shimmered like puddles in the sunlight.
"When are you coming back?"
I crouched low, pressing a finger to the boy's forehead and ruffling his curls until he laughed.
"As soon as I finish walking the mountains," I said.
"Will it take long?"
"Maybe," I said. "But I'll be back. There's still a story I promised you."
"The one with the cloud-eating hawk?"
"That one." I smiled. "And a few others, if I'm lucky. Just make sure to prepare that mix I taught you, the one we can smell from far away. That way I will always know where to find home."
He hugged me then—quick and awkward, the way children do when they don't know what else to say. I stood, gave a final nod to Father, and turned toward the high trail.
The trees whispered behind me, but they didn't stop me.
Not this time.
Above, the mountain peaks reached through the mist like teeth biting into the sky. Somewhere beyond them waited old bones, forgotten paths, and stories no one had told in centuries.
I walked.
Just to see the mountain.
It would be quick.
At least, that's what I told myself.
The mountains were kinder than I expected. For a time.
Their silence suited me. I wandered through high passes where clouds moved slower than thought, drank from cold streams fed by glacier-heart, and slept beneath stars that no longer knew our names. I saw ruins half-swallowed by snow, found a cairn built from antlers and stone, and left a seed in its shadow.
Days passed like drifting leaves. Weeks like melting ice. I began to believe the world had forgotten me—and maybe that was a kind of peace.
But peace, like all wild things, does not linger where fire takes root.
War started to reach the outskirts of the mountain. And war—loud and bloody as it is—has a way of shaking even the deepest roots.
Since the mountain was no longer quiet, it was finally time, I decided, to return home.
I walked beneath a hollow sky, where no birds sang and the smoke of old fires still clung to the wind. The recent battles had stripped this land bare—stone walls collapsed like dry leaves, iron rusted into the soil, and bones littered the mountainside roads like seeds scattered without care. Medellin, they called it once. A kingdom. Now, it is only noise, fire, and a deep smell of death that lingered, unwelcome.
I had not meant to walk into war, but through the mountainside, along ancient trails known only to the tribes of my kind—paths that wound behind the clouds and under the bones of the giant. But I took too long. I always did. I had stayed by the Spine for years, hoping for one more sign, one more whisper from the wind. It never came.
So I kept walking. Downward. Home.
I hadn't seen another elf in... how long? A decade? A century? Time was different for my kind. A century wasn't exactly a short time, but it was only a fraction of our life span.
And now, my footsteps took me into lands in between me and my home, lands where I had traveled across on my way to the mountain, during a time of peace, but now sunlight burned hot on steel, and men screamed not in joy, but in war.
The valley ahead groaned with the clash of blades and the panic of horses. I smelled blood on the wind—old and new, both fresh and spoiled. A battle had broken out below, between two banners I did not recognize. One bore a black serpent. The other, a crimson hawk.
I crouched behind a collapsed wagon, crushed under a boulder and long abandoned. From my satchel I took a seed—a fat one, pale as moonlight. I pressed it between my thumb and forefinger and felt it give with a satisfying crack. I knelt low and placed it in the soil.
The magic was slow to wake. It always is now. The land resists.
Then, with a sound like a heartbeat in reverse, a tree burst from the earth beside me—thin, with blue leaves like tears, its bark pulsing gently. It would mask my scent, hide my presence for a time. It was an old trick. One of many.
I moved with it, silent and low, watching the battlefield from within its shade. Men died in heaps, like spoiled crops. Others howled for aid, or vengeance, or glory. But one woman caught my eye—armored in black leather that shimmered like scales, wielding a poleaxe with precision and fury.
She moved like a true warrior.
She split men open with the weight of mountains. When her weapon stuck in a man's shoulder, she kicked him off of it and kept moving. Spells sparked at her back, drawn from glyphs tattooed in her skin, no doubt—but dulled, dim. I knew why. Her armor choked the sun.
We elves invented this sort of magic. We know how it works. But humans tend to borrow these powers without caring much about their rules.
Strange. She fought as if her magic still burned, but the runes on her shoulder were little more than ink in the dark.
I stepped closer. Then closer still. No one noticed me. No one ever did—until I let them.
She was surrounded now. Six men, then seven. They moved cautiously, like hyenas circling a lioness. I watched her angle her shoulder, adjusting the weight of the axe. Ready, but tired.
And then the monster came.
It wasn't of either army. I don't know where it crawled from—maybe some broken ward, or the rot of war itself—but it moved on limbs too long for any natural beast, a tongue dragging across the mud as it moaned. Its skin blistered and smoked in the sun, black blood dripping from jaws that stretched too wide.
A wyrmling. Green-hide.
The men screamed. Even the woman took a half step back. I think that was the first moment she looked back at me, and for a moment, I thought I recognized someone I'd long forgotten.
I stepped forward.
I reached into my pouch and pulled out a red-veined seed, still warm from the sun. This one was special. Dangerous, too, if I got it wrong.
I crushed it. The smell of sap and fire filled the air.
I threw it to the earth under the creature, and let the forest answer.
The soil shuddered beneath it as roots drank greedily from blood and shadow.
With a sound like thunder snapping through silk, the red-veined seed burst open. A column of bark shot from the dirt, spiraling upward as thorns unfurled along its skin. Leaves sprouted like knives, black-edged and sharp-scented. Within seconds, a tree stood where there had been none—tall and wicked, with a trunk that split into a tangle of branches shaped like spears.
The monster shrieked as its clawed foot collided with the thorns. It stumbled, surprised. Its tongue curled in pain.
The woman in black armor took her chance.
Her poleaxe cleaved upward, not toward the creature's skull—but into its gut, low and sharp. She twisted, not for flourish but to tear. The beast flailed, shrieking, spitting green-black bile. She ducked a wild swipe and rolled back—closer to me.
Her eyes found mine for a breath.
And then the beast charged again.
I reached for another seed. This one was pale blue, smooth, almost translucent. I cracked it, tossed it ahead of the monster's lunge. It struck the earth with a puff of dust.
From that dust, a barrier erupted. A wall of bark and bloom, braided like woven shields. Thick, flowering vines snapped into place, holding the trunk in line as the monster slammed into it. It howled. Clawed. Tried to tear through.
It couldn't.
"Now!" I said, though my voice came out softer than I meant. "Hit the joints!"
She didn't hesitate.
She darted forward, and I caught a clearer view of the runes etched along the underside of her jaw and collar. As I expected, she had our tattoos—elegant ones, old, inked deep into the skin.
But dulled. Asleep.
She didn't seem to notice. Or care.
Her axe swung down hard on the joint of the creature's upper leg. Bone cracked. With a howl, it stumbled sideways, crashing fully into the bramble-wall I had grown.
The tree groaned, then split open at the middle. Vines lashed out like whips, binding the beast. Thorns dug in. The monster thrashed. Died.
Silence returned. Except for the faraway clash of armies still too stupid to notice what had wandered into their war.
The tree began to wither, as all my creations eventually do. They are not meant to linger. They serve, then die.
The woman straightened. She pulled off her helmet, and the mess of crimson-black hair tumbled out, damp with sweat. Her ears were covered. Her skin was dark with soot and warpaint, but her eyes—gray as stormglass—were sharp and fixed on me.
"You're not with the hawks," she said. Her voice was like gravel. "And you're not with the serpents. So what the hell are you?"
"Passing through," I said. "Or trying to."
She looked me over. "You're... elfkind?"
I nodded. "I am."
A pause.
"There haven't been elves in Medellin in decades."
I offered a faint smile. "That's not true. I'm here."
Her gaze sharpened. "No, I mean—people say your kind is gone. Wiped out. Lost in the demon wars."
"I… didn't know that," I said honestly. I couldn't believe in what she said. But the news did not really sink in. Not yet.
I continued.
"I left before those wars began, I reckon. I took the mountain paths. The long ones. I've only just come down."
She blinked.
"You're telling me... you walked over the Spine of the World while this kingdom burned?"
"I prefer quiet places," I replied. "And it was meant to be a short trip. For my kind, at least."
Another pause.
She gave a bitter half-laugh, then gestured to the dead creature with her poleaxe. "An elf descended the mountains just as I needed help. Lucky me."
I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I didn't.
Instead, I glanced toward her tattoos again. I tilted my head, thoughtful.
"You have sun-ink," I said. "But you wear full armor."
"What of it?"
"It's not working," I replied, and then pointed to her shoulder. "Your tattoos—they need light to awaken. Sunlight. You're suffocating them under dragonhide."
She blinked. Once. "How do you know that?"
"It's old magic, by human standards" I said. "Older than your petty wars. Older than dragonhide, even. But to me, it is young enough to remember its creation. My tribe was one of the first to experiment with it."
She stepped back half a pace and tilted her head at me, skeptical. But not dismissive.
"So you are an old mage? By human standards, of course."
"I'm not a mage. The arcane you humans use is primitive. Wrong. I use seeds, they are much easier to use and don't cost my soul, thank you."
She studied me in silence for a breath. The sounds of battle faded to the background. She lowered her poleaxe, resting the shaft against the ground.
"Do you have a name, or do I just call you 'not a mage' ?" she asked.
"I still have a name," I said. "I just don't give it easily."
Her tone was calm. "Well, I don't ask easily. So I suppose that makes us even."
I hesitated, then dipped my head. "Caelum."
"Caelum," she repeated, testing the word like steel between her teeth. "Sounds like an old name. Like you."
"It is."
"I'm Alissa," she said. "I have the title of Dragonslayer. Though I don't care for it."
"I don't see any real dragons here," I said. "Except for that dead baby there, and a lot of very dead men."
That earned me a small breath of laughter. Almost too small to catch.
She glanced back toward her lines, where another volley of horns had just sounded. "Our camp's not far. Our king—our commander—he'll want to see you."
"I'm not interested in kings," I replied. "Especially not in the middle of wars I don't care about."
"It will be tough to pass through the lands on your own, if you want to visit the forest. A deal with our king could help you with that."
Her voice was strange when she said that. She looked at me again—at the satchel of seeds, the remnants of the thorn-tree already dissolving back into soil.
"I've seen a hundred kinds of magic on these fields. But nothing like yours. Not since the demon war. It would be valuable to have you on our side."
I shrugged, adjusting the strap across my chest. "It's not meant for war."
"Too bad," she said. "That's all we have left. Follow me if you want to arrange an escort."
She turned and began walking back toward her side of the field. I hesitated for only a moment, then followed.
Somewhere in the middle of our conversation just now, I heard wind shift through leaves. A smell came out of her hair. A familiar one.
Maybe I wasn't the last elf after all.
Or maybe I am, and I'm grasping at a false hope.
Still, something draws me to follow this woman.