Time snapped back to full speed. She landed heavily, knees bending to absorb the impact. Thunder rattled through the air, and the ship rocked beneath her, the swirling storm threatening to hurl them all into the angry sea. Water sloshed around her ankles, and the hole she’d created spouted more brine onto the deck. In the corner of her vision, the blond man slumped, coughing, one hand pressing against his ribs.

But the elven traitor now held the Orb of Astralyth, its intense radiance casting stark shadows across his rain-soaked face. A surge of raw fury coursed through her. These crooks threatened her people, threatened the sanctity of Elytheris, and stole a sacred relic. She would not let them succeed.

Lightning flared across the sky, illuminating her spectral mask. She stepped forward, rain sluicing off her hair and shoulders. “That Orb,” she growled, voice echoing with the remnants of the Voice of Twilight’s power, “belongs to Elytheris.”

The deck shuddered with the distant pounding of monstrous tentacles, but all that paled next to the silent standoff between the two elves: one fighting for her homeland and birthright, the other lost to unknown motives. Neither looked away, and neither yielded ground.

The traitor stood poised on the slick, broken deck, long black hair clinging to his rain-soaked face. His blue-green and piercing gaze swiveled toward the princess. A slow smile curved his lips, though his eyes were anything but gentle.

“Does it?” he asked softly, voice barely audible over the thunderclaps.

For a heartbeat, her heart pounded hard enough to shake her ribs. The Orb of Astralyth blazed in his hand, radiating a star-hot glow through the sheets of falling rain. Lightning flickered overhead, illuminating them both in an unearthly white flash, casting black shadows on the remains of the sundered deck.

She couldn’t waste another second. Elle darted forward, bare feet gripping the soaked boards. Her nails dug into the wood as she crouched low, launching herself in a leaping arc that closed the distance between them in a blink. But before she could strike, a thick, reeking tentacle burst from below, coated in brine and slime. It whipped upward, crossing her path in a blur of purple-grey flesh.

She twisted mid-air, but not quickly enough. The impact caught her shoulder, hurtling her sideways. Her head smashed through a shattered beam, the world exploding into splinters and stinging saltwater. A cry tore from her throat.

The same tentacle lashed out again, flailing at the traitorous elf who held the relic. He managed to dodge the brunt of the blow, though the jolt forced him to release the orb. Its dazzling radiance arced upward, spinning helplessly in the stormy air.

In that instant, the Kraken’s colossal, suctioned limb thrust itself higher, catching the orb in a glistening coil. The star-bright relic glowed like a beacon in the sea creature’s grasp, reflecting ghostly flickers on the deck’s shattered remains.

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Off to the side, a panicked voice rang out. The blond man was still sprawled where he had been tossed earlier. He scrambled to his feet, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Fox!” he yelled, eyes darting toward the remaining cloaked figure. “Hurry up! Teleport us out of here!”

The last cloaked figure was tall and had a deeper, accented voice. He sighed, an undercurrent of frustration leaking through his calm. “Lucius, calm down,” he replied. His hood shifted in the wind, though his features remained half-obscured. This is very, very delicate magic.”

“There won’t be any more of us if you continue to take your delicate time!” Lucius snapped, half-limping toward the cloaked spellcaster.

A surge of amethyst light radiated from the man called Fox. Lines of runic script shimmered in the air around him, forming a half-sphere of flickering symbols. The storm’s wind seemed to die momentarily near him as if the magic bent it aside.

Simultaneously, on the other side of the deck, Faye’s voice rose in a desperate chant. Her once-failed teleportation circle was still smoking and half-washed out by rain. And then, after a heartbeat, the circle suddenly reignited with renewed brilliance. Grimey spun overhead, the mouth on its cover opening in shrill alarm, “Miss Faye, there is interference! Too many coordinates converging!”

But Faye refused to yield. She slammed one palm onto the soaked planks, wincing as lightning cracked again. “We cannot be afraid when destiny looks us in the eye!” she screamed above the storm. Her other hand traced a rapid sequence of glowing runes, layering fresh magic atop the battered circle.

At once, four different light rays lanced down onto the broken ship in beams of stark blue, lurid purple, glimmering silver, and pale gold. They intersected with a violent crackle of raw arcane force. Still reeling from the blow and the impact with the beam, the elf princess turned her head just in time to witness magic converging on all sides from the amethyst incantation, from Faye’s renewed portal glyphs, from the stolen relic’s starry glow, and from the swirling tempest that sparked with arcs of raw energy overhead.

A shockwave rippled through the carrack, making the deck shudder so fiercely that even the monstrous Kraken recoiled. Its massive tentacle was still gripping the Orb, and it began flailing in confusion, but the orb itself was no longer visible; it vanished behind the blinding corona of colliding spells.

The light swallowed everything. Elle’s eyes burned, tears of pain slipping unheeded down her cheeks. Time ground to a stop for a breathless moment, suspended in the pure, overwhelming brilliance.

Then, a new thunder rumbled. Something more than the storm, more than the Kraken’s roar. The ship’s planks warped, fissures spreading across the deck. Water surged in from every side, filling the air with the roar of crashing waves. And in that chaotic heartbeat, every living being on The Silver Horizon, whether they were a princess, traitor, or wizard, the stolen relic, vanished into that fusion of magic.

When the radiance finally cleared, the ship was still there…barely. The war ships and their blazing lanterns shone through veils of salt spray. The elves aboard those vessels could see the ragged remains of The Silver Horizon, tilting precariously with no sign of any crew. The Kraken still writhed amid the broken beams, tentacles thrashing in confusion, searching for its lost prey.

But the princess, her friends, the criminals, the precious orb, and anyone who had stood on that deck were gone, whisked away by the colliding spells to who-knows-where, leaving the devastated ship to sink beneath the stormy waters, and the approaching elven armada to confront a scene of emptiness.

Unseen by any mortal eye, the howling wind carried a last echo of voices, vanishing into the night. Whether this unexpected confluence of magics would prove their salvation or their doom remained to be discovered…somewhere, in a place far beyond the roiling seas of Elytheris.