A hush settled the instant Elliana vanished—
not the fierce, storm-torn silence that had accompanied her rage,
but something softer.
A natural silence.
The kind the world makes after a predator leaves the clearing.
Ivan hovered alone, wings half-spread, rain pattering gently against the crimson light flickering across their edges. The storm resumed its motion in a tentative ripple, as though uncertain it was allowed to move again.
For the first time since she'd appeared, he exhaled.
Slow.
Long.
Measured.
Droplets slid down his hair, across his cheek, along the sharp line of his jaw.
"…already gone," he murmured to himself.
He lowered his head, wet blond strands falling over his eyes as a small, crooked smile tugged at his lips.
"Of course she is," he said softly.
"Of course."
He stood for a few seconds—suspended in the heart of the broken storm—while the rain shifted from needles to mist, turning the forest floor into a dark wash of mud and shimmering puddles.
Ivan rolled his shoulders, wings flexing with a low hum.
"Just how I expected it to go," he muttered.
There was no mockery left in his voice now.
Only quiet satisfaction, threaded with something unreadable.
He tilted his head and glanced upward.
Far above the treeline, a distant eruption of power split the night sky—a flare of shadow and light clashing, echoing through the clouds.
Ivan's eyes gleamed, reflecting the brilliance like molten metal.
"Everything is going well," he said to the storm, his tone almost gentle.
"Perfectly, in fact."
He folded his wings closer, energy settling around him like a cloak.
"I just have to sit back," he sighed, "and wait."
The clouds rumbled overhead—one long tremor, like a sleeping giant turning in its rest.
Ivan's smile deepened.
"Until the time," he whispered,
"when the night decides to spark."
A soft pulse of crimson energy swirled at his feet—
then rose—
then twisted.
His form wavered.
Blurred.
Dissolved into light.
Ivan vanished with a faint, descending hum.
---
Elliana hit the ground like the ending of a nightmare.
Not a landing—
a rupture.
Shadows burst outward from the point of her arrival, shredding the air in a radius of cracking darkness. The impact cratered the earth beneath her boots, dust and rain exploding upward as though violently rejected from her presence.
Before sound could finish catching up—
A blade—white-hot and buzzing with lightning—was already inches from Draven's exposed throat.
Draven didn't see it.
But Cedric did.
His eyes went wide—too wide—
pupils shrinking to pinpoints as instinct screamed through him.
The attacker's blade never reached its mark.
Because Elliana's shadow dagger met it first.
No arc. No swing. No warning.
Just black steel manifesting in her palm, angled perfectly to intercept the lightning blade with a ringing, metal-devouring hiss.
The shockwave rattled every loose stone in the clearing.
The attacker—a hooded figure veiled in crackling blue light—stumbled back from the impact, lightning crawling over his arms like panicked serpents.
Cedric didn't wait.
In a single movement—sharp, explosive—he blurred backward across the clearing, putting distance between himself and the woman who had just materialized from nothing.
He stopped only when he hit the treeline, chest heaving.
His voice was a whisper.
"…Night Elf."
But she didn't look at him.
She didn't even perceive him.
Her entire world narrowed to the blood on the ground.
To the broken shapes scattered in the mud.
To Draven.
She turned—
slowly, terribly—
toward him.
Draven was trying to push himself upright, breath ragged, face streaked with blood. Blood slicked the earth beneath him in a spreading pool. One arm ended at the elbow. The other at the shoulder. His right leg was severed cleanly above the knee.
And through it all—
he was still trying to crawl toward her.
"Ma…" he rasped, voice cracking.
Elliana dropped to her knees beside him, shadows swirling violently around her like a shield ready to shred anything that moved.
Her hands hovered above him but didn't touch—
as though she feared even contact might worsen his pain.
Her silver eyes—bright as lunar frost—widened with something Simon had never seen in them.
Fear.
Real, trembling, human fear.
"Drav," she whispered, breath unsteady for the first time since the battle began.
Her shadows rose—
not in aggression—
but in something primal.
Protective.
Terrified.
Alive.
The lightning assassin hesitated across the clearing, blade still raised—but he no longer dared step forward.
Elliana slowly lifted her head toward him…
and when she did—
The temperature dropped so sharply the rain began to steam.
She didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
The way she looked at him—
as though deciding whether to tear him apart slowly
or erase him instantaneously—
was enough to freeze the knight where he stood.
Draven's breath hitched, eyes flickering.
Elliana leaned over him, shadows curling around his wounds, her voice low and shaking with a wrath deeper than words.
"I'm here," she whispered.
Then her gaze lifted again to the attacker.
And that whisper became a promise of death.