Jorghan didn’t listen to words that sounded like wet leaves.
He was already among them: precise, careful, and clinical.
Fists and flats of palms that taught balance, not bloodletting. He pressed, flipped, and shoved; each strike was asured to break pride, not bones. Not a bruise marked their skin when he finished—only humbled faces and the kind of shock that makes even cocky youths rember how fragile they are.
He leaned down, close enough that the twins tasted the river on his breath.
"ss with again," he said, voice small but heavy, "and I will rip your heads off."
It was a promise wrapped in a child’s mouth, but it carried the weight of sothing older and terrible. He released them, turned, and walked away before they found their tongues.
Behind him, the stream swallowed the ripples, and the reeds bent back to whispering—as if the surroundings themselves had been chastened.
-
The Sacred Spire buzzed with tension as the clan’s elders gathered in a wooden hall that was totally made of wood—walls, beams, everything seed to be naturally made.
The hall filled with the elves of different sizes and shapes, muscular, leaner, and stronger; all of them were mostly above seven feet tall.
The elders ford the inner ring, their ceremonial robes rustling like autumn leaves as they took their positions.
Korreth stood at the northern point, his massive fra radiating controlled aggression, while No’tra occupied the seat of eldest wisdom. Between them, the other council mbers—masters of various disciplines—created a spectrum of magical auras that made the air itself shimr with barely contained power.
Sigora stood with the secondary advisors, her face a mask of careful neutrality that Jorghan had learned to recognize as her most dangerous expression.
"We have a situation that we haven’t faced in all these years of peace. The trash beings who we thought couldn’t find our hos are at the borders of the clan’s territory now."
"The humans have found us," declared Korreth, his voice carrying the authority of one who had seen more battles than anyone else did.
"Humans are greedy; they cannot be trusted. We need to find out how they found us quickly."
No’tra raised his gnarled staff, the old wood gleaming with embedded runes.
"What do we know of their intentions?"
"Does it matter? They are helpless mutts when it cos to their emotions. If we were to let them stay in the Yandoryna any longer, they will co for our lives," one of the elders, nad Par’shan, said. He agreed with Korreth, and he absolutely hates humans and has quite a nasty temper but is a very strong, thodical warrior.
No’tra’s expression suggested that he was annoyed with Korreth and Par’shan. He leaned forward and said in a somber tone, "Humans may be fools but they aren’t weak. If they were able to reach the border isles, then they are really capable, we should say."
"They fly on these mysterious ships we haven’t seen, carrying what we don’t know."
"This suggests coordination, perhaps even communication we were not aware of."
"They have other thods of navigation," Sigora interjected smoothly.
"It’s better if we stop underestimating them."
Elves had been distant from humans and their lands since centuries ago, and they don’t interact or mix with them; it was one of the hardened rules of elves.
"The humans are not without skill in the magical arts, rely different in their approach."
Ueren stepped forward from his position among the watchers.
"Patriarch, they maintain distance but show no signs of withdrawing. Their formation suggests they are searching for the isles."
"Then we strike them when they don’t expect it," Par’shan growled, his hand moving instinctively to the warhamr at his side.
"A dozen Chycors with full battle riders could scatter them before they realize the threat."
"And provoke open conflict with a force whose true size and capabilities we don’t understand?" No’tra’s tone carried the patient weight of age.
"Wisdom suggests we learn more before we act."
The debate that followed revealed the deep fractures within the clan’s leadership.
So favored imdiate aggression—the humans had violated their territory and must be dealt with swiftly. Others advocated for defensive preparations while attempting to divine the intruders’ true purpose.
It was Korreth who proposed the solution that made Sigora’s blood run cold.
"The boy," Korreth said, not eting Sigora’s gaze.
"Sigora’s nephew, he is human. And I say, we should send him there as our eyes and ears. Let him probe them, gather information, and report back to us."
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