Chapter 54

“Open Field” (Part 3)

And fear twisted in her guts at the sight of nearly two thousand elves fighting against an army of monsters that easily exceeded ten thousand. And in the background, behind the sea of bodies of strange creatures of different colors that were knocking down the few trees in their path and the small group that were almost as tall as a five-story building, there was a huge orange portal, almost as big as the one she had seen on Earth.

“Shit!” The quiver without arrows she was holding slipped from her hands, hitting the cold earth beneath her feet, while Ardrach’s voice was heard as background noise as he gave orders.

“You guys go with Satho! Zhankenshy, you and your group protect the far right. We don’t have enough men on the battlefield, but if we take turns in small groups to be healed and blessed by the saintess, we’ll have a chance! Take care to inform the rest about this! Roedhoj, pick a couple of archers and protect the saintess! The others will come with me! Our job is to stop any of those monsters from ever getting close to her again!”

Kingdom of Elenium. First shelter. King’s room.

Jaesia entered the temporary chamber of Ettokalr, son of Arandh, leaving behind the two guards that guarded the thick iron door that protected the king’s current quarters.

The first refuge, as they used to call it, was a building away from the castle and connected by a subway tunnel reinforced with magic by court magicians for generations. And despite the sullen appearance of its stone walls, it was the safest thing they could access without alerting others to the presence of the other shelters.

Ettokalr lay on the cushioned pillows, his long straight blond hair disheveled, more from the man’s desperate attempts to stir it as he thought of a solution than from having rested for a couple of hours.

“Xaermn and Lakyat are gone,” she reported promptly. Even with the trust between the two of them, she had never liked to waste time. Or taking as many detours as the court elves normally loved to use.

Ettokalr immediately sat up on his disheveled sheets.

“What do you mean, they’re not here?” he growled hoarsely.

“You sent me to investigate yesterday why the saintess hadn’t been given food. So I went with Xaermn to investigate, and according to the cooks, they did prepare the food, but I noticed the strange behavior of one of them during the interrogation so I asked Xaermn to keep an eye on him while I settled other matters of importance. But this morning, by the time I went to look for the cook, he had been poisoned and there were signs of a struggle on his body, although the crime scene seems to have been cleaned up.”

“How do you know he was murdered and not that he himself was a spy who committed suicide for fear of being discovered?” With all that had happened since he had made the deal with the fairy queen and had announced to his sister in a private conversation that the saintess was coming to his kingdom and made sure that only a few knew about it. He was sure that there were at least a couple of spies in his castle.

“By the mark of a hand on his arm. I saw the cook’s arms while I was interrogating them and there was no bruise on his wrist; he was punched in the face and the collar of his shirt was wrinkled. The magician who checked his body confirmed that he must have been killed during the early hours of the morning. Also, it was when I was trying to find out what had happened to him that I noticed Xaermn’s absence, and when I asked about him to other elves, they informed me that they had seen him arguing with Lakyat last night.”

“And now there is no sign of both of them," the young king whispered as he stroked his chin.

“No. And I already checked his quarters, and neither he nor his personal valuables are there.”

“If Lakyat is involved in this, that would explain how word spread in other kingdoms that the saintess was coming so quickly. Although that still doesn’t explain why we were attacked just before her coming," Ettokalr rose from his bed and began pacing back and forth, annoyed at the betrayal of one of his closest advisors.

“There is something else you should know. Though I have no way of confirming it right now.”

“What’s going on?”

“Apparently Xaermn traveled to the capital of the kingdom of Thagyol in the middle of last week, two days before it was destroyed by monsters, and from what I was told, when he returned, three days later, he acted as if nothing had happened. He didn’t even report the invasion.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“There’s no way he wouldn’t have heard about the opening of a portal in the capital," he muttered with a frown.

Jaesia watched the king with concern.

“If indeed the saintess is the real target behind this invasion, is it right to have sent her to the outskirts of the Thagyol border?” Jaesia asked. “That was not part of the agreement with the queen and could be detrimental to us later." She stood in front of the king’s bed, who had just sat down on a comfortable chair next to the head of his bed.

“The saintess will not tell the queen since she wishes to learn magic and does not seem to have a way to communicate with her. And even if she does and doesn’t survive the attack, you will all be gone from here by the time that happens," he commented quietly.

“You can’t expect me to escape and leave you...” But the king interrupted her before she could finish her sentence, taking her hand in his and pulling her warm body close to his.

“- The queen will settle for torturing me and killing a few of my people, but she will be too busy protecting her people from these invaders to waste her time hunting us all down.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“They already survived the first invasion, and even if they have the military power to survive a second one, the plague is a problem for them. That’s why they chose a saintess. And choosing a new one will take time, even with all the power she possesses. Finding someone with the necessary qualities is not an easy task.”

“Ettokalr, you can’t waste your life like this," she whispered and reached out a hand to caress the face of the elf who had been her lover for years.

“Don’t worry about that. Besides, my brother will protect her well. He seemed interested enough to do it even before I ordered him to seduce her.”

“She didn’t seem interested in him, only in his power," objected Jaesia, who, unlike her king, knew that a woman’s heart was not always moved by someone’s status. Ettokalr’s sister herself was a clear example of this, having renounced her right to the crown and run away from an arranged marriage to be with the simple and humble elf to whom she had given her heart and body.

“She will fall sooner or later," the king assured her. “Her desire for power will make her an easy target for Caranthir, despite his past. Besides, that naïve young girl could become our ticket to get the fairy queen to grant the system to more elves of our own people.”

“I don’t think the saintess is as naïve or manipulable as you think.”

“And yet she agreed to make us a barrier for such a low price, even if she arranged that the terms for renewing the barrier would be renegotiated each time she renewed it. The price alone for making it was ridiculously cheap. That girl has no idea what kind of potential she has. I just made sure I made my move before anyone else alerted her to her great value. Besides, my brother is one of the most powerful mages on the entire continent.”

“But there are others more powerful than him.”

“Yes, I know. But she doesn’t know that.”

****

How am I supposed to get out of here alive? And with everything that had happened since Kalysto had arrived in this world, she had forgotten a small detail.

One that only at that moment she managed to remember when she saw that portal.

And it was that according to the end of the tragic book: "The Fall of the Hero", the continent of Tanish would be destroyed, and only a very, very small group of fairies would survive the great massacre.

It's just a coincidence!... The name is similar, that's all. She tried to convince herself.

“Shit!” And while her heart was beating like a runaway horse against her ribs, she opened the map of the violet system, to make sure. And there, around the wooded area where her golden dot was located, several kilometers north of the violet dot on which her boss’s position was marked, and next to two other dots she had no idea who they were, at the top of the window marking the different territories, it said in bold letters:

‘Tanish Continent.’

Shit!

<> whispered that other voice in her head.

“Shut up!” She growled under her breath, earning several glares from a couple of elves.

Think positive... She tried to convince herself. Look at all those experience points waiting to be harvested. She thought.

And as a shiver ran down her back and her palms began to sweat, something deep inside her stirred, rejoicing at the chaos and all the destruction before her.

And more than fifty meters beyond, flying above the sea of monsters, was Caranthir surrounded by various magical symbols, shooting gigantic fiery flares at the gigantic monsters that kept coming through the portal.

And something inside her resonated, warming her blood at the sight of that fire devouring the bodies of the enemies, dispelling all traces of the fear she had felt before.

And turning it into excitement.

She wanted to be able to do something like that, to bathe them all in a sea of fire until there was nothing but ashes left around them.

<> whispered that voice in her head.

But despite Caranthir’s monumental efforts, too many monsters had already left and advanced towards the small hill where she stood.

And as she fantasized about acquiring all that power, a monster over six meters tall jumped, falling into the small circle of elves surrounding her, crushing one of them with its huge foot. Before bowing down and letting out a mighty roar.